(Image from Xenco Medical)
Surgical implant maker Xenco Medical (San Diego) said it has launched the first interactive vending machines designed for spine surgery instruments and implants.
The machines house, track and dispense the company’s disposable spine surgery implant and instrument systems, which are engineered from a composite polymer. WiFi-enabled, the vending machines use an elevator-based system to retrieve each sterile-packaged product before dispensing it to be used in surgery. Users interact with a large touchscreen interface to select the desired instruments and implants as well as send real-time alerts to Xenco Medical headquarters.
The company’s composite polymer spinal products include its SETx cervical interbody and plate system, pedicle screw system, posterior cervical system, and lumbar interbody system. Unlike traditional, metal instruments that are reused in hundreds of patients until a mechanical failure, Xenco Medical’s single-use systems are calibrated and sterile-packaged for patient-specific use.
With the sterile-packaged, composite polymer instruments and spinal implants attached together in each package, the single-use implant systems are designed to both increase efficiency in the OR as well as eliminate the internal logistics associated with the autoclave process. The vending machine also offers on-demand tutorials on Xenco Medical products featuring a virtual assistant named Ezra.
“Extremely encouraged by the market’s response to our disposable, composite polymer systems, we’ve employed advanced, logistics–based technologies to deepen the impact our disposable systems make in streamlining the healthcare supply chain,” said Xenco Medical founder and CEO Jason Haider in a news release.
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