When surgeons say ‘wow’: A game changer for orthopaedic surgery

From reducing surprises in theatre to cutting multidisciplinary team meeting times in half, surgical teams across the SWASH+ consortium are embracing what David Howard, an orthopaedic surgical practitioner at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, describes as a “game changer” in orthopaedic planning technology.

The consortium, comprising University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, and Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, has deployed a surgical planning solution from Sectra, its medical imaging IT provider.

From planning to precision

The impact of the technology became clear to Howard while preparing for a complex trauma case. 

Using a pre-operative 3D planning tool, he was able to virtually reconstruct a patient’s fracture and present it at a trauma meeting before surgery.

“I showed them the 3D reconstructed fracture,” he explains. “With a click, we reset the fragments to show the original trauma, then removed larger fragments on screen to reveal where the smaller ones needed to go.”

This level of insight, well before the first incision, allowed the team to prioritise fragments, correct angulation, and restore anatomy in advance—eliminating uncertainty in theatre.

The reaction from surgeons was immediate: “Wow, why have we not had this before?”

“This is a game changer,” says Howard. “We can rehearse procedures, understand fragment positioning, and determine the direction and rotation needed to reconstruct the fracture." 

Transforming MDT workflows

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