In June 2021, health tech company DEO (Data-Driven Efficiency for the Operating Room™) signed a commercial agreement with DePuy Synthes, the orthopedic branch of healthcare product giant Johnson & Johnson.
Breakthrough OR Data Firm Partners with JNJ’s DePuy
As healthcare demographics age and patient demand and pressure to reimburse increases, the agreement holds particular significance. “We’re extremely proud of this collaboration with one of the leading medical device companies. We’re looking very much forward to be working together with DePuy Synthes and bring data-driven efficiency to hospitals in the EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa] region,” said DEO Founder and CEO Jeroen Dille.
DEO is based in Genk, Belgium. The company created the Operating Room Efficiency Platform designed to support hospitals in reducing surgical team fatigue. The platform additionally aims to increase patient volume and hospital earnings.
DEO employs a detailed, data-driven approach that sets the company apart from competitors. Dille explained the approach to OTW and said, “Most of DEO’s competitors data-mine existing hospital IT systems. DEO, on the other hand, generates its own first-of-a-kind datasets inside the OR, which goes much deeper than what is typically available in the existing systems.”
“These comprehensive datasets ultimately provide eye-opening insights on OR processes and workflows, ergonomics, team allocation, material usage, and financial performance, supported by an activity-based costing model. Thanks to the unique data insights, DEO identifies tailored, actionable improvement opportunities on a very detailed procedure level and automatically models and predicts the impact of implementing these with regard to the surgical team and the hospital.”
DePuy Synthes is the orthopedics company of industry leader Johnson & Johnson. DePuy Synthes specializes in orthopedic trauma, joint reconstruction, sports medicine and craniomaxillofacial and spinal surgery. DePuy serves health care systems worldwide. Utilizing one of the top orthopedics portfolios in the world, including VELYS™ Digital Surgery portfolio, DePuy impacts millions of patients globally.
OTW asked Dille what led to the partnership between DePuy and DEO. Dillie explained, “DEO developed its solution in collaboration with a number of KOLs [key opinion leaders] and hospitals. From this network also a relationship was built up with DePuy Synthes and this evolved into this commercial collaboration.”
DEO feels the agreement between the two healthcare tech companies is more relevant than ever. DEO’s data and services platform provide needed comprehensive data and insight that can support hospitals in streamlining policies and procedures, decreasing surgical provider stress, reducing wait times, and increasing technology innovation and implementation. The companies expressed in a joint press release that the commercial agreement will allow DEO and DePuy Synthes to share expertise in order to benefit hospitals, providers and patients.
Now entered into contract, the two tech companies plan to waste no time. “The main goal for the partnership in 2021 is to deploy DEO’s solution in a first wave of hospitals in EMEA,” said Dille.

Discussion
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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