Massachusetts-based digital surgery firm Activ Surgical is collaborating with Innominds on developing surgical sensing capabilities to improve visibility and insights for surgeons around the world.
 
Activ joined Qualcomm’s smart cities accelerator programme, which is designed to connect cities, municipalities, government agencies and enterprises with an ecosystem of providers to help deliver efficiencies, cost savings, safety and sustainability.
 
Activ’s membership in the programme was what linked it with California-based Innominds, a specialist full-cycle product engineering services company. Activ Surgical and Innominds are working on the development of an AI-powered camera that can be used in digital surgeries, as well as a method for big data ingestion into the cloud.

The collaboration is expected to drive transformation initiatives in data-driven, intelligent surgery by bringing together both companies’ expertise across machine learning (ML), 5G, big-data analytics and advanced visualisation for surgery.
 
“We are excited to collaborate with Innominds as part of the Qualcomm smart cities accelerator programme,” said Tom Calef, CTO of Activ Surgical. “Our work will ensure that surgeons everywhere will have greater access to cutting-edge technologies that enable them to make better informed decisions and ultimately make a greater impact on reducing the number of avoidable surgical errors that occur each day.”
 
Anil Katakam, chief operating officer of Innominds, added: “Working with Activ Surgical enables Innominds to bring together leading-edge device engineering, breakthrough software product engineering, cloud applications and AI-driven data engineering to power digital surgeries of the future. This collaboration will ensure that we stay at the forefront of developing AI-powered, connected camera and imaging that are simpler, smarter and more cost-effective. This is a firm step in our endeavour to power the digital next initiatives of global companies that we work with.”
 
With expertise in commercially deployed products, programme members include hardware and software providers, cloud providers, system integrators and design and manufacturing companies, as well as those offering end-to-end smart city services.
 
“We are humbled and honoured to join the Qualcomm smart cities accelerator programme, particularly as we begin to ramp up deployments of our surgical intelligence platform into healthcare systems across the USA this year,” said Todd Usen, CEO of Activ Surgical. “We share Qualcomm Technologies’ vision to empower global access to best-in-class surgery, regardless of geography.”
 
Activ Surgical’s participation in the programme and collaboration with Qualcomm should help increase opportunities for healthcare systems in the USA and global markets to leverage its newly announced ActivEdge platform. ActivEdge is an AI and ML hardware-agnostic platform that enables existing surgical systems to see in real time what humans cannot currently see, including blood flow.
 
Participation in the accelerator programme will give Activ Surgical access to hardware- and software-enabled communication tools and 5G networks that will help bring these insights to operating rooms around the world.
 
“Digital healthcare and telemedicine are extremely important elements of our smart, connected world, and will only continue to grow in importance,” said Sanjeet Pandit, senior director at Qualcomm. “We are happy to include Activ Surgical in the Qualcomm smart cities accelerator programme to help grow this vital area.”