Medtronic has launched Spine Essentials—a new platform of spinal implants and instruments designed to make common cervical spine fusion procedures more efficient and cost-effective—in the USA.
The system was launched at the Ambulatory Surgical Center Association (ASCA) annual meeting in Dallas, USA.
According to a press release, the goal of Spine Essentials is to help surgeons and their staff streamline the most common spinal fusion procedures, by providing the exact tools in the right quantities needed to perform one- and two-level cervical spinal fusions, while reducing the costs and time required for instrument sterilisation, case set-up and inventory management.
“As a surgeon who routinely performs these types of surgeries, it is helpful to optimise the implants and tools, so we are being as efficient as possible to provide the best care possible to our patients,” says Richard NW Wohns, neurosurgeon at neoSpine in Puyallup, USA and one of the physicians who collaborated with Medtronic to develop the platform.
Spine Essentials implant sets include the most commonly used implant sizes for one- and two-level anterior cervical discectomy and fusions, and are sterile-packaged with smaller instrument sets; intended to thereby reduce the amount of inventory a hospital needs to sterilise, set up and store.
According to the release, this platform will reduce sterilisation costs associated with the procedure, including:
~44% fewer instruments to sterilise compared with the full-sized configurations.
91% fewer items to sterilise compared with the full-sized instrument and implant sets.
67% reduction in number of cases to sterilise compared with the full-sized instrument and implant sets.
