How will digitalisation affect patient treatment in arthroplasty? Part I: Intraoperative aspects

We cannot deny that technology has become an important part of our daily life, not only in automobiles, houses or cellphones but also in hospitals. In the OR, in particular for knee arthroplasty, image free navigation has proven to reduce the number of outliers and by that the revision rate in younger patients. Over the last years robotics has again been introduced into the operation theatres. However, in their present version they add time and costs, but only minimal benefits to the procedure. Therefore, future robots should be faster and instrumentation free. Beside those more economical aspects, the goal of this digital technology must be an improvement in clinical outcome. To achieve that, additional steps for analyzing the pre-, and intra-OP quantitative data is key. With the use of artificial intelligence and/or machine learning a data based algorithm will probably be developed, which helps the surgeon to integrate all parameters into his individual cutting and releasing plan for each patient. Digital data therefore, might become the key to enable the surgeon to treat patients more individual and by that hopefully deliver better outcome.