Launched in 2016, Proximie was a platform that enabled clinicians, proctors, and medical device company personnel to be virtually present in operating rooms, where they would use mixed reality and digital audio and visual tools to communicate with, mentor, assist, and observe those performing medical procedures. The goal was to improve patient outcomes.
ARIEL STERN: As you said, you’re completely surrounded by gadgets. Increasingly so. There are laparoscopes and all of the tools used in non-invasive surgeries. There are robots. Actually, I was just having coffee earlier this morning with one of our MD/MBA alums who was talking about using the Da Vinci robot, which is the most well-known surgical robot on a day-to-day basis.
ARIEL STERN: When we were writing the case, we actually took some time to do a bit more of a protagonist profile than I usually do in cases. Nadine is really a remarkable person, and by all accounts an incredible surgeon. She was born in the United States in a Lebanese-American family, grew up in San Diego, and then as a teenager moved back to Beirut, to Lebanon where she was from, and ended up spending many of her formative years in postwar Lebanon.
ARIEL STERN: Absolutely. And that’s right. So what’s interesting about the operating room is that even though there are many pieces of digital technology, as we said earlier, they’re not actually well-connected to one another. And in many respects, for that reason, the operating room itself is the last bastion of the healthcare system of the hospital that’s not digitized.
ARIEL STERN: There are various ways we could talk about other partners. I think on one hand, in terms of their global health work, Proximie has been very deliberate and I think very thoughtful about finding partners in the global health setting. They talk about Jhpiego and Ariadne Labs, whom they’re working with in Kenya.