Medtronic Launches Spine Essentials in the U.S.

Medtronic plc has launched in the United States its Spine Essentials platform, a new line of spinal implants and instruments designed to make the most common cervical spine fusion procedures more efficient and help hospital systems manage costs, while maintaining quality.
 
The goal of Spine Essentials is to help surgeons and their staffs streamline the most common spinal fusions, by providing the exact tools in the right quantities needed to perform 1- and 2-level cervical spinal fusions, while reducing the costs and time required for instrument sterilization, case set up and inventory management. Spine Essentials was developed in collaboration with leading surgeons and administrators.
 
“As a surgeon who routinely performs these types of surgeries, it’s helpful to optimize the implants and tools, so we’re being as efficient as possible to provide the best care possible to our patients,” said Dr. Richard N.W. Wohns, orthopedic surgeon at neoSpine in Puyallup, Wash., and one of the physicians who collaborated with Medtronic to develop the platform.

To develop Spine Essentials, Medtronic partnered with U.S. healthcare systems to evaluate unmet needs and identify efficiencies. Spine Essentials implant sets include the most commonly used implant sizes for 1- and 2-level fusions of the neck (anterior cervical discectomy and fusions) and are sterile packaged with smaller instrument sets; thereby reducing the amount of inventory a hospital needs to sterilize, set up and store. This platform will reduce sterilization costs associated with the procedure, including:
 

• Forty-four percent fewer instruments to sterilize compared with the full-sized configurations;
• Ninety-one percent fewer items to sterilize compared with the full-sized instrument and implant sets; and
• A 67 percent reduction in number of cases to sterilize compared with the full-sized instrument and implant sets.

 
“Healthcare systems are under intense economic challenges, and Spine Essentials is an example of how Medtronic can bring value to spine surgery by optimizing costs and efficiency,” said Doug King, senior vice president and president of Medtronic’s Spinal business, which is part of the Restorative Therapies Group at Medtronic.
“We’re committed to delivering successful patient outcomes more efficiently, but we can’t do it alone which is why Spine Essentials was developed with the input of physicians and hospitals.”
 
Spine Essentials incorporates technology developed by Gary K. Michelson, M.D.
 
Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Medtronic plc is among the world’s largest medical technology, services and solutions companies. The global entity employs more than 85,000 people worldwide, serving physicians, hospitals and patients in approximately 160 countries.