As digital healthcare and the market for it evolves, so must Proximie. Victoria Hatcher, Proximie’s VP of Global Marketing and Sales, explains how the platform’s agility is cementing its role as the operating system of the operating room (OR).
“At Proximie, we can never be static,” says Victoria. “Market dynamics are constantly changing—customer needs, technology, and competitors all evolve - and it’s our job to ensure we have the depth of customer insight to meet their demands. Since 2016, Proximie has been endeavouring to push the boundaries of what is possible in an OR to help healthcare teams deliver the best possible care. The key to this is constant innovation, driven by constant communication with our customers, who are spread across the globe in over 800 facilities.
“Proximie’s evolution is directly shaped by the demands of the market - through the time we spend with our customers, interviewing them and receiving feedback on our platform. As a result we have enhanced Proximie’s capabilities by shifting from being a solely telepresence solution to a real time data-driving, AI-enhanced platform with a focus on empowering healthcare teams and medical device organisations to help deliver better care, further and faster than ever before. Our rapid development, particularly in AI and Machine Learning, is transforming how surgical pathways are planned, executed and reviewed.”
Healthcare generates 30% of the world’s data1, and Proximie recognises that 97% of this is untapped due to its unstructured nature2. Furthermore, 75% of OR actions, objects and conditions remain uncaptured.Proximie is actively working to rectify this, having so far recorded over 100,000 hours of video, audio and device data from the OR, driving a shift towards capturing and capitalising on data that highlights the importance of improving outcomes and providing tangible benefits such as improved scheduling, throughput and productivity for decision-makers in healthcare.
Despite the abundance of healthcare data, healthcare systems continue to struggle with major challenges.These include workforce retention, patient safety, increasing demand, either from waiting lists or population growth, and tighter budgets. Every healthcare system now effectively needs to do more with less and every healthcare system needs to drive greater productivity.
“These demands have helped to shape the Proximie we see today, and the Proximie we see at the forefront of this systemic change in how we collectively deliver better care, quicker and more efficiently than ever before,” says Victoria.
The operating system for intelligent operating rooms
“Our key customers remain largely the same, but our product is increasingly proving its value through data-backed outcomes,” says Victoria. “Our core values of enhancing patient care through surgical collaboration remain central, but we are moving beyond this by creating an interconnected network. Our goal extends to analysing every single surgery to provide actionable data, notifications and real-world impact. A tangible and objective view for customers that highlights how they can optimise surgery, improve OR efficiency and ultimately enhance patient care.”
“The urgency of our evolution is a result of hospitals and medical devices companies being unable to remain disconnected in the OR any longer. Hospitals need insight into how their systems work; medical device companies need insight into how their robots and other devices perform. The status quo does not work if they want to obtain instant insights and make real-time improvements.
We are increasingly becoming the central digital conduit - or the operating system for intelligent operating rooms - enabled by our cloud-based infrastructure, that is connecting whole health systems, people and devices, old and new.
“As we move beyond our telepresence origin, we want to bring customers, clinicians and stakeholders with us on the journey. Because as much as we’re moving deeper into tech and AI, healthcare is ultimately about human connection - and the power of Proximie is built on and evolves through the strength of the expertise and intelligence provided by the surgeons, clinicians and patients who interact with our product.”
Advanced technology that optimises human interaction and expertise
“How we interact with our customers and bring the new capabilities of the platform to life continues to evolve right across our organisation,” says Victoria. “We're excited to update our existing customers, while also sharing the unique capabilities of Proximie with the market.
“As we continue to drive innovation in this space, it is incumbent on Proximie to share the stories, benefits and use cases that bring the power of our platform to life - be it through our traditional channels, via our dedicated commercial teams, or at the industry-leading events we attend. This year alone, Proximie has attended over 30 of the world’s leading medical technology events. Because for all of our technology, software stack, and AI algorithms, Proximie remains, and will continue to remain, fundamentally about human connection. Proximie's recent activities at the Future Surgery Show embodies this spirit. We used our platform to broadcast a full curriculum of live surgeries from hospitals in the UK, the US, and Africa, all on the same day, into a standing room only crowd at the event in London.
“It’s been incredible to see our brand stand out as one of the strongest in the industry, confirmed by an independent customer review earlier this year. We've garnered more than 60 pieces of media coverage, each one designed to ensure the Proximie story gets told in the right places, but we know we can't stand still.”
An operating system ready to adapt to the future
The human element is at the core of everything we do at Proximie; the adoption of increasingly advanced technologies is simply the means by which we connect and enhance human expertise, optimise the efficiency and outcome of human interactions, and ultimately work towards developing a healthcare system that is more universally beneficial for humanity as a whole.
But this is not the end point of our evolution. This is a waypoint in the journey of a platform that has the agility to support current and future technological advancement as the market requires; an agility guaranteed by the passion and prowess of those who built and keep building our platform - ensuring that as healthcare and its needs evolve, so too does Proximie.
"There aren't any external references for us, because we are breaking new ground with Proximie, particularly in the product and engineering team,” Victoria says. “The Proximie journey doesn't just happen overnight. It takes creativity, talent and commitment and we are really only just getting started.”
1 Jane Thomason, Data, digital worlds, and the avatarization of health care, Global Health Journal, Volume 8, Issue 1, 2024, ISSN 2414-6447, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.glohj.2024.02.003
2 https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/12/four-ways-data-is-improving-healthcare/
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