SEPTEMBER 2015
H
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“It is a problem that applies to all
stakeholders, from the patients who
have to endure the pain and hardship, to
the surgeons who are liable for making
mistakes and have to correct them when
the patients come back to the hospitals,”
said Bakirtzian. “And ultimately the
hospitals want to deliver the best possible
care for their patients. They want to make
sure that the patients are satisfied with
their outcome and they are not going to
come back for follow-up surgery or follow-
up care. (Finally), obviously the payers
who have to pay for all those follow-ups
are motivated for the surgery (to be done)
right the first time.”
While in early development, Bakirtzian and
his co-founders discovered that navigation
technology systems are on the market
to address this same problem, but were
inaccessible to the majority of orthopaedic
surgeons and hospitals due to high upfront
capital costs and the time they add to
the procedure. Hip replacement surgery
is typically around 60 minutes. It is not
feasible for surgeons to use a system
that could add 15 to 30 minutes to the
procedure. Another drawback is that they
are very complex to use.
“We had orthopaedic surgeons and trained
engineers and they still did not want to
spend the time to learn how to use the
system because it was too complicated
even for them,” said Bakirtzian.
INTELLIJOINT WORKS
CLOSELY WITH SURGEONS
Trying to understand exactly what would
appeal to an orthopaedic surgeon and
what would meet their needs, Bakirtzian
said that his team collaborated closely
with clinicians.
“I think not only for medical technology, but technology products in general, first
of all you need to have the motivation from the industry that you are solving a
problem that people actually care about, so getting the clinician involved from
the beginning is a critical step in developing and commercializing a product.”
Armen Bakirtzian, CEO & Director
