VirtaMed AG, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, received a considerable honor when its LaparoS was selected as a leading medical technology innovation in Switzerland by the jury of the Swiss MedTech Award 2020. VirtaMed combines virtual reality graphics with original instruments and anatomic models for true-to-life tactile feedback.
Innovative Surgical Simulator Wins Swiss MedTech Award
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According to the company, “The innovative approach to integrating medical devices into surgical simulators, combined with a motivating training concept, were hailed as key success factors for the future of medical education. Attendees of the Swiss MedTech Day agreed that simulation should play a mandatory role in speciality training and competency-based assessment.”
“Reaching the finals of the Swiss Medtech Award 2020 is a huge achievement that demonstrates the value of medical education and surgical simulation as part of our medtech ecosystem,” said Dr. Heiko Visarius, Moderator of the Swiss Medtech Day 2020. “VirtaMed’s simulators are a strong symbol of Swiss innovation that makes an impact on the global stage.”
Dr. Stefan Tuchschmid, co-CEO and co-founder of VirtaMed said, “We have successfully partnered with many medtech companies to co-create new surgical training simulators for over a decade. In this special year it’s fantastic to see how we have invented new ways of working together to provide state of the art medical education for healthcare practitioners.”
“We have leveraged all of our experience and worked with the experts to create the first laparoscopy simulator that truly makes education sense and provides unparalleled realism,” Raimundo Sierra, co-CEO VirtaMed told OTW.
“I can confidently say that VirtaMed supersedes all existing training options with our LaparoS, not just with the technical capabilities but with the training approach,” stated Martina Witz, Ph.D., head of Training and Education for the company.
“In all my time teaching laparoscopic skills I was missing motivational teaching concepts. Simulation should allow trainees to experiment, to test the limits of what they will later do in the operating room, and to train operative skills beyond their current capabilities. With LaparoS we have a condensed training concept that focuses on specific skills in short 5-minute sequences. This concept is very motivating to repeat skills and improve them, and experiment with finding solutions and overcoming complications.”
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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