At our fifth annual LSI medtech summit in Dana Point, California, we heard from Dr. Catherine Mohr, President of Intuitive Foundation and former VP of Strategy of Intuitive Surgical. Dr. Mohr has one of the most distinguished and diverse backgrounds in the medtech industry, with expertise across surgery, engineering, healthcare policy, product design, FDA compliance, education, and product development. The Intuitive Foundation, led by Mohr and her team, strives to reduce the global burden of disease and suffering through philanthropy, research, and education to improve patient outcomes.

During her keynote speech, Dr. Mohr shared her journey with Intuitive Surgical, calling attention to the longstanding “wicked problems” burdening the world of healthcare. Through an insightful overview of the history of robotic surgery, Dr. Mohr discussed how Intuitive Surgical and other medtech companies in the space can leverage emerging technologies, AI, and ML to address these complex challenges through purpose-driven and persistent iterative innovation.

Understanding the Wicked Problems

“Wicked problems” refer to the gaps between what clinicians want to do for their patients and what is actually possible. At the intersection of healthcare and technology, many of these problems are fundamentally related to issues in patient care and patient outcomes.

Take surgery, for example. Traditional open surgeries, while effective, are done using a large incision; however, this incision serves no therapeutic purpose for the patient. 

“If you can make the incision as small as possible and do the exact same surgery, it will always be better for the patient.” 

When compared to minimally invasive surgery, open surgery is associated with slower recovery times, longer hospital stays, increased postoperative pain, and increased scarring, among others.

This is just one of the wicked problems Intuitive was working to solve nearly three decades ago—how do you make minimally invasive surgery? Can we do it with robots?

Through years of research and tireless iterative innovation, Intuitive did just that. They solved many of the wicked problems—from creating a robotic surgical system for minimally invasive cardiac, urologic, gynecologic, pediatric, and general surgery procedures to a system that combines a catheter robot and ML, allowing for significantly shorter lung cancer diagnostic cycles.

Throughout their research, Dr. Mohr and her team noticed the wicked problems extend beyond the creation and adoption of new technologies in the world of healthcare—perhaps the most wicked and challenging problem is the lack of access to surgery. This is where AI and ML may come in.

The Potential Role of Data, AI, and ML 

Lack of access to surgery is a global health crisis. An estimated five billion people don’t have access to safe, affordable surgical and anesthesia care when needed. Access is significantly worse in low- and lower-middle-income countries, where nine of ten people can’t afford access to basic surgical care.

Scaling surgery exponentially requires:

• Hospitals

• Equipment

• Surgical practitioners

• Anesthetists 

• Nurse midwives

• Medical officers

• Scalable education and training

While building more hospitals may seem like the solution to many people, the true wicked problem is the ability to train the next generation of healthcare providers. The ability to scale education and training is a major piece of this puzzle.

“You need to train the people. Because it takes a year to build a hospital and ten years to train the people.”

By utilizing AI and ML, it’s possible to scale things like reading- and lecture-based knowledge acquisition. The tricky part is scaling skill-based knowledge acquisition. Dr. Mohr believes this may be achieved by shifting the standard “see one, do one, teach one” to “see one, teach yourself one (with real-time skill observation and guidance), do one.”

Assessment is key to guided practice, but self-administered assessment is key to scalability. To accomplish this, Intuitive is looking at novel ways to deliver content, video- and AI-based peer skills reviews, and recommendation engines. 

More from Dr. Mohr and LSI USA 

Dr. Mohr’s keynote at LSI USA ‘24 can be found at the link below, alongside our deep library of proprietary content from premier events in the USA and Europe:

• Keynote with Dr. Catherine Mohr, President of the Intuitive Foundation | LSI USA '24

Registration, applications to present, sponsorship opportunities, and more are now open for LSI USA ‘25 at the Waldorf Astoria, Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point, California. Get in touch with our team to learn more and secure your spot while space is available.