Medtronic Partners with IRCAD North America to Launch AI-Integrated Robotic Surgical Education Platform

Source: MedRobot

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# Medical Education System and Application Scenarios

According to the cooperation plan, the teaching system of North American IRCAD will be led by Medtronic's medical education team in designing the curriculum content, offering multi-level, modular training pathways open to junior doctors, resident physicians, and senior experts. The curriculum content covers the following core formats:

• Theoretical Training：Focused lectures on the principles of surgical procedures, equipment operation mechanisms, and intraoperative risk management;

• Intraoperative Demonstration and Simulation: Real case demonstrations, preoperative simulations, and operation feedback training combined with the robotic platform;

• Remote Interactive Teaching: Achieve transnational remote teaching and collaborative seminars through platforms such as Touch Surgery;

• AR/VR-Supported Visualization Teaching: Using virtual reality technology to simulate surgical procedures and spatial operations, improving training accuracy and engagement.

It is expected that the center will attract thousands of surgeons from around the world each year, becoming an important hub for clinical training in areas such as robotics, AI, and minimally invasive procedures.

# Content of Cooperation and Technical Integration Mechanism

The core of this cooperation lies in technology integration. Medtronic will provide its multiple core medical technology platforms to North American IRCAD, coveringRobot-assisted surgery, electrophysiological navigation, and AI surgical simulation training systems, specifically including:

Hugo Robotic-Assisted Surgery System：

• Product Features

Intelligent Recognition:Able to identify and label key anatomical structures, provide information that may not be visually observable, making the surgical process more precise and controllable, reducing potential human errors, and improving the success rate of surgeries.

Affera Electrophysiological Mapping System and AiBLE Ecosystem：

InAt the core of this collaboration deployment, the Affera mapping system and its AiBLE intelligent ecosystem constitute an important pillar for Medtronic in the cardiac electrophysiology (EP) field, primarily targeting precise diagnosis and catheter ablation treatment for arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation.

The Affera system consists of the Sphere-9 catheter and Prism-1 software, featuring high-density cardiac electroanatomical mapping and dual-energy ablation (PFA and RF) capabilities.

Sphere-9 Catheter Features a Spherical Electrode Design, Enabling Both Electrophysiological Mapping and Ablation in a Single Puncture, Significantly Streamlining the Procedure While Maintaining Precision and Reducing Operation Time. Compatible with Both Radiofrequency (RF) and Pulsed Field Ablation (PFA) Technologies, the Catheter Allows Flexible Energy Modality Switching Based on Lesion Characteristics to Meet Individualized Treatment Needs.

Prism-1 Mapping Software: High-resolution real-time imaging, wavefront direction analysis, and automated tagging functions create clear electroanatomical maps to help doctors quickly identify the origin areas of arrhythmia. The system's built-in TagConnect algorithm combines local impedance changes with electrical signal direction to provide operators with ablation point feedback, improving operational efficiency and reducing the risk of misjudgment.

The intelligent capabilities behind the Affera system are supported by the AiBLE ecosystem. In the field of cardiac electrophysiology, AiBLE is not a single device or interface but a technological ecosystem that integrates AI assistance, data feedback, and navigation strategies. Its main features include:

• Automatic Identification and Guidance：Relying on the algorithm's fusion processing of electrical signal patterns and catheter position information, providing real-time prompts for the ablation window and energy parameters;

• Data Integration and Intraoperative Optimization:Integrate high-density electrograms with the patient's previous structural information to improve the accuracy of image interpretation;

• Simplified Surgical Procedure: Simplify the operation through strategies such as "one-time guidance" and "zero fluoroscopy," reducing catheter replacement and radiation exposure.

This system is currently mainly used for the treatment of persistent atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter, and will also be expanded to the treatment of complex rhythm abnormalities such as ventricular tachycardia in the future.

Touch Surgery Platform：

• Upload surgical videos within minutes, and Touch Surgery will anonymize them to ensure privacy.

• Subsequently, its developed AutoPhase™ platform will complete the process within 72 hours.Automatically Return Surgical Process Analysis Results, capable of performing phase-time analysis on specific surgical procedures selected by the user.

• Users can add content annotations to surgical videos and access them on their phones.

Touch SurgeryIs the first artificial intelligence-driven surgical video and analytics platform, representing a significant leap forward in the field of digital surgery.

These platforms will be systematically deployed in the teaching scenarios of IRCAD North America and deeply integrated with its long-accumulated teaching resources to support professional training in the three major sectors of cardiovascular, neuroscience, and minimally invasive surgery.

# The Cooperation Path Between IRCAD and Medtronic

IRCAD: A Global Model for Minimally Invasive Surgery Education

IRCAD, founded by Professor Jacques Marescaux in 1994, initially focused on minimally invasive treatment research for gastrointestinal tumors. It has since expanded to become a globally leading platform for surgical education, research, and technology validation. Its headquarters in Strasbourg, France, trains approximately 8,800 surgeons annually and provides multilingual educational content through its WebSurg website, currently serving over 30,000 registered users worldwide.

North American IRCAD, established through the collaboration between IRCAD and Atrium Health, aims to integrate industry resources, technology platforms, and international educational strengths. It focuses on areas such as robotic surgery, AI-assisted decision-making, and simulation-based teaching, driving the renewal of the surgical training system in North America.

Medtronic and IRCAD: Three Decades of Collaborative Achievement

The collaboration history between Medtronic and IRCAD dates back to the 1990s, with early support from its subsidiary, US Surgical, for IRCAD’s training programs in Europe. In 2014, Medtronic established a joint training center in Strasbourg, Europe, equipped with 21 surgical simulation workstations covering teaching content such as energy devices, endoscopic systems, and suturing platforms.

This strategic cooperation in North America represents a further deepening of the relationship between the two parties and reflects Medtronic's global layout strategy driven by the "education + technology" dual-track approach. In addition to IRCAD, Medtronic has recently established partnerships with universities such as the University of Minnesota and University College London, focusing on educational research and development in areas like artificial intelligence, remote surgery, and clinical decision systems.

# Conclusion

Against the backdrop of rapidly increasing surgical complexity and increasingly refined technical platforms, single-device training or traditional teaching models can no longer meet the comprehensive requirements of surgeons for operational skills, intraoperative decision-making, and multi-system collaboration.

Technological platforms represented by the Hugo robot, Touch Surgery, and Affera navigation system are reshaping the approach to clinical education ——From preoperative planning, intraoperative operation to postoperative analysis, a closed-loop learning path is formed.

This collaboration represents not only a resource integration between two institutions but also reflects a new trend of industry synergy: embedding technical platforms into the education system to accelerate product validation pathways while providing surgeons with continuous advancement opportunities in real-world environments.

With the official operation of the new center, this model is expected to be promoted globally, providing educational support for the popularization of minimally invasive techniques, the standardization of digital surgery platforms, and the integration of AI capabilities, thereby building a sustainable and scalable surgical ecosystem.