value apart from a system's ability to improve a surgeon's confidence.
In other words, you'll want to see tangible results. However, there's
currently a dearth of clinical evidence to suggest ultra-high-def cam-
eras can improve surgical outcomes.
Dr. Skelley repairs a lot of rotator cuffs. He says no one has truly
tested the technology to see if performing the procedure is easier and
more accurate with ultra-high-definition versus standard-definition
imaging. "If you have clinical data showing that doing 100 rotator
cuffs with 4K is safer to perform and makes a significant enough dif-
ference than doing 100 rotator cuffs with standard definition, then it
makes it a lot easier to justify," he says.
Justin Barad, MD, agrees. "What is the outcome difference of high-
quality versus lower quality resolution?" asks Dr. Barad, a pediatric
orthopedic surgeon in King City, Calif. "If the difference is not signifi-
cant, it's a 'nice to have' addition to the OR."
The Minimally Invasive Spine Institute, which has locations in Dallas
and Midland, Texas, has joined the big screen surgery movement by
adding 60- to 70-inch surgical displays to its ORs. Michael Rimlawi,
MD, the Institute's founder, doesn't see the need to go any bigger.
Plus, ORs have only so much wall space and so much square footage,
meaning oversized displays might start getting in the way. That said,
some of the latest big screens for surgery can be mounted on special-
ly designed mobile carts, which let staff place the monitors where sur-
geons prefer during surgery and move them out of high-traffic areas
when they're not needed.
Dr. Skelley likes the fact that surgical displays have come a long
way in terms of size and resolution, but he still forecasts room for
growth. At the moment, he uses 26-inch by 26-inch LCD screens in the
OR. "When I first started doing surgery, we were using 16-inch by 16-
inch, low-resolution monitors," says Dr. Skelley. "Those numbers are
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