In this episode, host Erik sits down with Phil Sayles, CEO of Summate Technologies, to discuss a critical yet overlooked problem in healthcare: the analog documentation process for surgical implants.

Drawing on his 16 years as a device rep for Synthes, Phil explains why operating rooms still rely on pen, paper, and sticky notes to track millions of dollars in medical implants. From missing implant data in patient records to week long revenue cycles at ambulatory surgery centers, the current manual system is inefficient, error prone, and potentially unsafe.

Phil walks through Summate's Velocity solution, which automates surgical documentation at the point of use, eliminating data entry burdens on nurses, accelerating revenue cycles for ASCs, improving patient safety through FDA recall checks, and helping device manufacturers better manage their field inventory.

The conversation also tackles the cultural resistance to automation in healthcare, the parallels to retail's 20-year journey to adopt barcode scanning, and why this technology benefits every stakeholder, from patients and nurses to surgeons and device reps.

Whether you're in healthcare IT, surgery center operations, or medical device sales, this episode offers a fascinating look at how automation can finally solve the "final mile" problem in surgical care.

Links from the episode:

https://www.scanimplants.com/

https://www.summate.net/