PREVENT surgical errors
We are impassioned with preventing recurrent human & system surgical errors — improving American lives & hospital system profitability.
WE BECAME PASSIONATE… WE ARE NOW IMPASSIONED
Magvation's founders each became passionate about significantly reducing preventable surgical errors due to their personal experiences with surgery mishaps. And now, they are collectively impassioned with elevating Surgical Quality of Care. So, our team is here not only to generate a solid return, but to achieve Magvation's mission — never yielding until a real difference is made no matter what hurdles must be cleared.
All too often, founders of companies list passion for what they are doing as a core value. However, considering what it means to be passionate usually connotes an ephemeral human condition marked by intense emotion that temporarily arouses interest. The word passion derives from a Latin verb that means "to undergo" and is defined as "temporarily having an intense emotional reaction." So, passion can only be a catalyst for a temporary change and is unsustainable as a core competency.
Alternatively, what it means to be impassioned connotes a persistent human condition marked by strong emotion that transforms reasoning and motivates action. Defined as "consistently demonstrating actions caused by strong feelings. " Being "impassioned" turns passion into a driving force that propels action regardless of the hurdles ahead. It's that thing that fuels the engine of the human condition that inspires ongoing effort. And keeps refueling it time and again.
our Why
Like so many others, each of Magvation’s leaders at some point placed trust in systems of care that failed. Human error was responsible for acutely injuring or taking the lives of our loved ones. So, our motives for achieving our mission of elevating the Quality of Surgical Care go well beyond Magvation’s business objectives. These devastating & poignant personal events have impassioned us to reduce preventable surgical errors and drive our unyielding personal pursuit of better surgical outcomes for those who count on us most.
Typically, when one thinks of what it means to be passionate, it connotates an ephemeral human condition marked by intense emotion that almost displaces reasoning. The word passion derives from a Latin verb that means "to undergo" and is defined as "temporarily having an intense emotional reaction caused by strong feelings." Regrettably, like so many other Americans, Magvation's founders placed trust in systems of care that failed them — and failed them miserably. Inasmuch as preventable human error was responsible for seriously injuring and even taking the lives of their loved ones.
When any of us and those we love undergo a surgical procedure, we trust our lives with hospital policy, entrust our lives to operating room systems, and place our lives in well-intentioned surgical teams. Unfortunately, these complex systems of care are plagued by insufficient technology and flawed systems that predispose the operating rooms to human error, diminishing the environment of care — impeding surgical processes, undermining the delivery of care — and compromising surgical team focus, disrupting the fulfillment of care.
It's not about corporate social responsibility or altruistic motives. Instead, it’s about developing significant capabilities in our particular niche and demonstrating that we are using these capabilities to solve critical problems that impact human lives. It's about rapidly advancing MedTech allowing hospitals and individuals to deliver surgical care in new ways and empowering levels of operating room safety like never before. It's about Magvation's technology redefining Quality of Care — so no other American has to suffer from a preventable surgical error.
We know the only way to do good is to solve critical problems that save lives AND money. And we also know that the only way to keep doing good — is to good financially. That's why the best way for Magvation to advance the art of surgical safety & the science of compassion is to generate significant financial returns for our investors, partners, customers, and ourselves… and do it in an environmentally sound manner.
The Problem At Hand
For any given surgery, each & every ‘sharp’ must be counted a minimum of 3 different times. This is to ensure that “NO Thing Is Left Behind” per the prevailing Standard of Care. For example, if you undergo open-heart surgery, numerous discrete counts of 150+ tiny suture needles & other sharps must be performed by hand while you remain on bypass with your chest cavity cracked open before they are allowed to stitch you up. And they must be 100% accurate before they place the first closing stitch.
The prevailing operating room Standard of Care for counting sharps, or “The Count,” is entirely manual. It involves visually taking inventory, physically counting, audibly tallying, and hand placing & recording each & every sharp multiple times before, during, and after surgery. It is not only distracting & inefficient but also fraught with counting errors, patient foreign body retention, and staff needle stick injuries.
Although this safety measure has been Standard of Care since the AORN introduced this “Recommended Practice” in 2005, it cannot continue as-is. Such that manual counting is inadequate & exceedingly error prone — which poses a significant danger to patients, surgical teams & the hospital itself. Today’s operating room environment demands much higher levels of safety, efficiency & efficacy.
Disruption Is The #1 Cause Of Surgical Errors
The operating room is an environment where surgical teams perform high-risk, complex tasks that require extraordinary situational awareness, intense concentration, real-time knowledge transfer, and unfettered communication amongst team members. Consequently, during a procedure, the surgical team’s total focus should remain on the patient & procedure — not on ancillary devices, nonessential sounds, or mundane manual tasks that can divert their attention from the surgical field.
Surgical Distraction is an event that causes an operating room team member’s break in attention and their concurrent orientation to a non-relevant occurrence .A significant number of observational studies have uncovered a wide array of incident-associated distractions in operating room environments which range from case-irrelevant communications on mobile phones to music playing loudly in the operating room. Accordingly, it is imperative to recognize & eliminate incident-associated operating room distractions to reduce surgical errors.
Surgical Interruption is an event that causes an operating room team member’s break in the natural progression of their primary task orientation to attend to a secondary task. Although these breaks may very well be a legitimate task in a surgical workflow, depending on the team member(s) involved and their level of involvement, studies have clearly shown that surgical progression breaks like running out of sutures, looking for missing needles, and shift change, can be a causal factor in surgical errors. Accordingly, it is imperative to ameliorate incident-associated operating room interruptions to reduce surgical errors by limiting their severity, duration & frequency.
Cost Of Care
In a large-scale institutional study reporting 191,000 operations over 4 years, 382 RSI events were reported, with 76% of these being attributed to miscounted suture needles. However, this is likely a gross underestimation due to presumed underreporting, the exclusion of “near miss” events, and erroneous final counts.
Miscounts & RSIs nearly double the average cost of hospitalization & prolong operative time by as much as 1 hour per case. According to a 2019 publication by the Joint Commission, additional medical care due to an RSI is estimated to be approximately $70K- $200K per patient that is unreimbursed by the CMS or private payors. Hospitals saddle these expenses through extended hospital stays, prolonged operative time, supplemental use of X-rays, and repeat operations to remove RSIs. Additionally, various reports estimate medicolegal costs average $100K for settlement regardless of the patient outcome.
Errors also carry potential socioeconomic desolation for surgeons & hospitals. Miscounts & RSIs pose a real psychological & emotional burden on the surgeon, referred to as Second Victim Syndrome. A recent cross-sectional survey of surgeons at multiple teaching hospitals in Boston revealed that intraoperative adverse events cause severe emotional distress in 84% of the respondents. Anxiety, guilt, sadness, shame, embarrassment, and anger were the most frequently reported emotions. Ironically, these surgeons pose an even greater risk of surgical errors due to their emotional distress. Hospitals suffer a genuine brand equity crisis that can significantly impact elective admissions.