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In 2015, Tamir Wolf’s wife underwent an emergency appendectomy and was safely returned to her home in Brooklyn just 12 hours later. Around the same time, Tamir’s boss also underwent an emergency appendectomy in New York City and was eventually taken to her ICU, where she nearly died. The variability in surgical outcomes for the same disease was so different that Tamir, a doctor, wondered how to make the surgery more consistent.he made theater aims to improve surgical outcomes and has since raised $40 million to develop a new software platform that leverages computer vision and AI. Their early customers include Mayo Clinic and his four other top medical institutions.
Tamir Wolf, CEO and co-founder of Theator
theater
From a storytelling perspective, Tamir faced a common challenge for founders with multiple customers. Should the story be told through the lens of the ultimate benefactor (patient), user (surgeon), or institution (clinical director of the hospital)? All are capable protagonists. This startup her story explores the problem through the eyes of all three.
patient problem
Tamir’s “origin story” involving his wife and boss features the patient’s perspective. People needing surgery who live in large cities in the United States expect their surgeries to be consistently performed to a high standard. Patients understand that medical care is not perfect, but they believe that surgeons must be well trained and experienced and follow procedures known to be most effective. has been performed hundreds of times, so surgeons have learned and applied the best approach. They never imagined that different surgeons might use different protocols. Patients expect the best care that today’s body of medical knowledge provides. Sadly, they often find that reality looks very different.
doctor problem
professional baseball player Massive data and video analytics It tells how they pitch, hit and field.In business, salespeople use tools like gong Evaluate communication with clients and improve performance. What about surgeons performing life-saving surgery? Not really. Video captures many surgeries, but surgeons lack access to tools to capture the procedure, analyze performance, and make recommendations for improving methods and protocols. Surgeons are trained in medical school and attend meetings for continued learning, but there is no objective scale to track their day-to-day performance and guide them on how to improve. And above all, they likely don’t realize they could do better.
manager’s problem
Hospital chiefs aim to provide the same quality of care to all patients, regardless of physician. The department head hopes to be able to identify and deploy methods that are most likely to lead to successful surgeries for everyone. Achieving health care equity is difficult, and even harder without perfect information. We also want to optimize the efficiency of the procedure. One doctor takes her 20 minutes, while another doctor takes her two hours for the same procedure. All they have to keep up with are operational reports that are limited in providing insight. So the clinical director is flying blind. They don’t have the information necessary to tell if there are protocols that have proven to be more successful and productive. Patient confidentiality issues further hamper the process.These medical leaders don’t have the tools they need to create every day One of their doctors works to the best of their ability.
theater surgical intelligence
Theater’s team of more than 50 people in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv is building a software platform to address these gaps. They are building a surgical intelligence platform for hospitals that enables doctors to improve their performance. Theater does the following:
Capture patient confidentiality procedures — Patient confidentiality is essential, so the Theator platform de-identifies the patient before allowing him or her to view images outside the body.
Analyze procedures using AI and computer vision – The platform processes videos, logs the surgical process and annotates the key steps of the process.
Provide insight into methods and procedures – By mapping the best results to the specific procedures that led to them, Theator makes recommendations that can be applied by all physicians in the department to improve patient care.
Here is an example. A recent study of 300,000 hysterectomies revealed considerable variability in patient outcomes. One hospital wanted to deliver more consistent results across its population and worked with Theator’s platform to do just that. By deploying the Theator platform, hospitals found increased ureteral injury when surgeons did not properly inspect the ureter during surgery. With this new information, the department deployed a new protocol emphasizing ureteral examination. By introducing the new procedure, doctors were 50% more likely to use the correct procedure. As a result, patients experienced fewer intraoperative events.
As a startup storyteller, Tamir decided to share a poignant anecdote about his wife and boss. He then quickly shifts to the story from the doctor’s point of view. The core story is told through that lens. When sharing a business model, the department head’s perspective comes last.
The Theator hopes to improve patient health, physician performance, and the overall level of care in hospitals. If they deliver on this promise, Tamir’s story should have a happy ending for all three of her main characters.