Systems, methods, and devices for tracking surgical instruments and devices

Inventors

Khalife, Patrick Joseph • SANOGO, Yacouba • Ryan, David Nicholas

Assignees

Smade Sas

Abstract

Surgical instrument tracking systems, methods and devices are described. The system can include tracking devices configured to detect location events. The tracking device can include sensors, circuits, power sources, memories, and radio interface. The tracking devices can automatically determine a location of the tracking device when the tracking device detects a location event. The tracking device can automatically transmit the location and information related to the location event to a data analytics platform. The data analytics platform can allow a user to track multiple surgical instruments and surgical instrument tray in order to accurately determine when surgical instruments should be replaced, and how efficiently the surgical instruments are used.

Core Innovation

The document describes a surgical instrument tracking system in which a tracking device includes a sensor configured to detect a location event associated with the surgical instrument. A circuit controls and processes signals coming from the sensor, a communication module wirelessly transmits information to an external device, a memory stores information coming from the circuit, and a power source supplies power to the sensor, the communication module, the circuit, and the memory.

The tracking device determines a location event reaching a threshold level, determines a location of the device when the sensor detects the location event, compares the determined location to a previous location stored on the memory, and determines that the location is different from the previous location. In response to determining that the location is different, the communication module wirelessly transmits the location to an external system.

The document further describes location detection based on physical changes such as acceleration, temperature change, light change, pressure change, magnetic field change, or vibration, using sensor types including a mechanical switch, magnetic field sensor, accelerometer, temperature sensor, photosensor, pressure sensor, proximity sensor, or vibrometer. It also describes an autoclave-robust approach in which location events include autoclave insertion/removal events, and the tracking system supports multiple tracking devices in a surgical instrument tray.

The system transmits updates only when location changes are determined and supports power-saving behavior. It includes temperature-threshold-based power control, such as disabling power to components when a temperature increased above a threshold temperature is detected, and low-power mode behavior when events are not occurring. The document additionally describes transferring location/counter data to a secondary device for centralized inventory/usage analytics and notifications, and it includes platform/dashboard/device-management/onboarding concepts for user access.

Claims Coverage

The document includes two independent claims. Both independent claims focus on detecting location events for a surgical instrument, determining device location and comparing it to a previous location stored in memory, and wirelessly transmitting the updated location to an external system only when the location is determined to be different from the previous location.

Across the independent claims, the core coverage is conditional wireless transmission of an updated determined location to an external system when a threshold level location event is detected and the newly determined location differs from a previous location stored in memory.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications