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O U T P AT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 5
• Be responsive. Don't let
innovative ideas leave you in
their wake. When you sense
something unusual, a better
mousetrap that can't be
ignored, stand up and take
notice.
• Be daring. You don't beat
your competitors by being
more efficient at the same
processes, but by discovering
new processes. It's not a me-too
game.
Which brings us to what could be the latest disruptive technology
to hit surgery. A new software company called Cohealo wants to
bring the sharing economy to the operating room. It hopes to do for
capital equipment what Uber has done to transportation — stream-
line it using the sharing economy. The premise: Health systems
share medical equipment. Rather than each of the 5 hospitals in a
health system buying an "underutilized asset" like a laser cataract
system or a fracture table, for example, they all share one.
"Medical equipment is a major financial blind spot for hospitals and
health systems," says Mark Slaughter, CEO and founder of Cohealo,
who used to sell robotic and laparoscopic surgical equipment. "They
often spend tens of millions of dollars annually on medical equipment
purchases and rentals. But this equipment sits idle almost 60% of the
time and its use is typically limited to a single hospital site. With
Cohealo, health systems can manage their equipment centrally and
make it available on-demand across all of their facilities — wherever
E D I T O R ' S P A G E
InstaPoll
Like Uber, does it make sense
for facilities within the same
health system to share surgical
equipment with each other?
yes 82%
no 18%
SOURCE: Outpatient Surgery
Magazine InstaPoll, August 2015,
n=285