Proximie’s mission is to reduce health inequalities and save and improve lives, by improving knowledge sharing and access to expertise. As a simple software solution that connects surgeons wherever they may be on any device, Proximie is both accessible and affordable – a solution founded by a surgeon, for surgeons. It is a software platform that allows physicians to virtually scrub-in to any operating room, from anywhere in the world, as well as store all procedures in a secure video library.
NVIDIA is powering our virtual scrub-in solution, allowing us to use a secure, low-latency platform to meet clinical demands.
The NVIDIA IGX platform supports the domain-specific NVIDIA Clara Holoscan software development kit, which is helping us build the next generation of software-defined devices.
Our team was looking for a device that could be the true center of gravity for Proximie technology in the OR; a device optimized for real-time graphics processing and machine learning applications that is both secure and safe to use in a clinical environment. Clara Holoscan helps us achieve an increased resilience to network loss and to process video locally for reasons of performance and data privacy. We’re optimistic that local video processing both improves the experience for the user and lowers cloud compute costs as more of the compute load is taken in the room. NVIDIA Clara™ Holoscan is going to support Proximie’s ambitious goal to provide the most immersive experience possible.
“We are delighted to work with NVIDIA to strengthen the health ecosystem, and further our mission to connect operating rooms globally,” says Dr. Nadine Hachach-Haram, CEO and Founder of Proximie. “Thanks to this collaboration, we are able to provide the most immersive experience possible and deliver a resilient digital solution where operating room devices all over the world can communicate with each other and capture valuable insights.”
Proximie is changing the surgical paradigm, and the platform is an extension of what Caprice Greenberg and Atul Gawande wrote about in 2011 in the New Yorker: the coach in the operating room.
Traditionally, surgical training has always been described as “see one, do one, teach one.” This is how surgeons like Proximie’s founder, Dr. Nadine has always trained and delivered care. Proximie is changing that model to prepare, perform and perfect, because to drive real efficiencies — pre, intra and postoperatively — clinical education and practice should be a digitised continuum. That means Proximie’s user could be a first-year medical student or a senior consultant at the top of her game, but throughout the whole pipeline — from learning to care delivery — everything is connected. Surgeons can now learn before, during and after surgery, leveraging video data and analysis to help inform best practices.
In addition to being of use to the broadest user base within any given healthcare setting, Proximie was intuitively designed so that it could plug into any part of the global healthcare landscape. Dr. Nadine and her team purposefully designed Proximie from the outset so that it would never be a siloed product. It has now been used in every surgical specialty and can extend across the whole surgical industry or an ecosystem within any given hospital. That software-first approach has enabled Proximie to quickly layer on really exciting new technologies to the broadest user base possible. The key is accessibility. Proximie has always needed to function in a wide variety of geographical areas, social contexts and environments, but also be malleable to innovative ideas, technologies, people, and different pieces of hardware that you might find in an OR. It also had to be usable to every single individual within a healthcare system.
Proximie is an easy-to-use Google Chrome- and Microsoft Edge-based platform, which means there is no need to download any cumbersome software. Using the platform, you can broadcast four simultaneous live video feeds to multiple users, including from any medical device (imaging, cameras, navigation, fluoro, robotics, scopes, ultrasound, ECG and any other device with a video output), as well as regular cameras (webcams, room cameras, overhead cameras, wearables etc.), while Proximie’s integration team can support other bespoke needs (share screens, laptops, mobile devices, increase the video feeds). The agile integration is bespoke to the clinical setting, but ultimately it has been designed to be malleable to healthcare settings all over the world.
To give you an example of a recent case, Proximie enabled an interventional cardiologist in Washington DC, USA, to virtually scrub-in to collaborate with a London cardiologist during a transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR). The critical intervention, which happened in real time and from 3,733 miles away, helped to save the patient’s life. The procedure took place under strict COVID-19 conditions.
