Exactech’s Knee Instrumentation System Wins IDEA Bronze

Exactech, Inc. has announced that the new Truliant Knee System’s surgical instrumentation has been honored with bronze award in the 2017 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA). The annual event is sponsored by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).

As the company wrote in its August 21, 2017 news release, “The designs embody Exactech’s brand strategy and offer surgeons a reproducible and efficient experience through texturing and blue accents which indicate touch points for adjustability and functionality; elegant black background for high-contrast markings and easily identified grip locations; dials that offer tactile and auditory feedback with every click; textured surfaces on handles and specific points which provide a secure grip and accommodate mechanical and functional needs of the user.”

According to Laurent Angibaud, director of knee and CAS engineering at Exactech, “Merging customer input with solid design principles, our industrial design and technical engineers optimized the function and appearance of new instrumentation to improve user experience, which is core to our surgeon-focused culture. This award demonstrates Exactech’s commitment to developing solutions to address real clinical needs.”

Design team surgeon Sudheer Karlakki, FRCS (Orth) at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom commented: “Truliant provides a harmonious balance of both functional improvements and format enhancements with a color scheme that aligns with the Exactech brand. An important design emphasis was placed on users being able to pick up any instrument and easily get a sense of its important working features. With its ergonomic and intuitive design intentions, surgeons and hospital staff should have an instant connection to the system; that is the real beauty of Truliant.”

Karlakki commented to OTW, “The main design challenge we faced was to incorporate simplicity and intuitiveness, while making the instruments versatile enough to adapt to complex situations and varying surgical philosophies. Our team of surgeons, engineers and technicians was passionate about designing the Truliant system for reproducible outcomes. I believe orthopaedic surgeons will be pleased with what we were able to achieve, including new intuitive and ergonomic instrumentation that provides accurate and predictable results for whichever approach the surgeon chooses to use.”