Marubeni Corp. and Beyond Next Ventures Inc. (BNV) have announced they will invest in OPExPARK Inc., jointly established by Southfield’s Denso Corp. and BNV, to support the digital transformation of operating rooms and surgical education platform business for doctors. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.
In recent years, the need for digital transformation has been rapidly increasing in the health care industry, as represented by the development of new medical services such as telemedicine and online medication guidance, and the utilization of medical data.
In addition, with the decrease in the number of surgeries and restrictions on movement, delivering surgical education has been challenging, with young doctors having fewer opportunities to learn techniques from operations that senior doctors perform. Therefore, there is a growing expectation for an educational platform that allows doctors to learn surgical techniques online.
OPExPARK utilizes the information integration platform OPeLiNK developed by Denso with the support of the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development. OPeLiNK is an information integration platform that constantly provides data gathered from each piece of equipment in the operating room, which is conventionally handled individually, with data in a consistent format so that it can be used by any device.
By extracting and delivering accumulated equipment and biological data, information important to the decision-making of the surgeon can be visualized, and advanced tacit knowledge that was difficult to learn outside the operating room can be shared.
In addition, OPExPARK contributes to the improvement of the quality of medical care in Japan and overseas by transmitting surgical videos and data acquired by OPeLiNK in real time and by providing advice on diagnosis and surgery from remote locations.
Marubeni has strengthened and expanded its IT consulting services business and cloud integration business to support and promote digital transformation for customers and partners. By investing in this project, Marubeni will contribute to the expansion of OPExPARK’s services from digital transformation in operating rooms and surgical education to digital transformation in hospitals.
Through this agreement and project, Marubeni, OPExPARK, BNV, and Denso will promote digital transportation in the health care industry and contribute to the improvement of medical quality.
