Dr. Nadine Hachach-Haram is a London-based consultant plastic and reconstructive surgeon and the founder of Proximie, “a technology platform that allows clinicians to virtually ‘scrub in’ to any operating room from anywhere in the world.” This augmented reality platform allows health professionals to teach, train, and collaborate remotely, thus digitizing a given surgeon’s footprint and creating a borderless and inclusive operating room.With more than 4.8 billion people in the world not having access to surgical care, this innovation could be extremely transformative at addressing health disparities.
Proximie is an award-winning technology, recognized at the World Summit Awards for Health and Well Being, and has been used in 20% of NHS hospitals in London during the COVID-19 pandemic. Proximie is currently in use in over 35 countries, focusing on education and impact in developing countries. Of note, Dr. Nadine Hacach-Haram gave an internationally-recognized TED Talk in 2018, entitled, “How augmented reality could change the future of surgery,” and shared Proximie with thousands of viewers.
In addition to her roles as a surgeon and a CEO, Dr. Nadine Hacach-Haram serves as a clinical innovation lead at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. She is a Clinical Entrepreneur at the NHS, and she also serves as faculty at Exponential Medicine and Singularity.
Pearls from our conversation:
Surgeon and CEO
Dr. Hachach-Haram was finishing up her fellowship and raising three children when she embarked on her entrepreneurial journey. Passionate about digitizing the operating room (OR) and facilitating access to best surgical practices globally, she reduced her clinical practice to four to six days a month to drive the company forward. Prior to taking this big step, she had already begun developing the product with outside contractors and was an advisor to early stage companies for 7 years, where she learned valuable lessons around company decision-making and R&D.
“If you are unsure,” she says, “spend some time with early stage companies and see if that is something you would like to do on a daily basis.”
“I can spend time clinically but can also touch more lives beyond the four walls of my hospital,” she emphasized.
Just as some physicians balance hospital administration or research responsibilities with clinical practice, Dr. Hachach-Haram chose to dedicate herself to innovation.
Coming from a clinical background, she realized she would have to learn the business side of things on the way. As a result, she benefited from not being afraid to ask for help, and encourages out listeners to do the same.
“I would love to pick your brain on this,” or “I am planning to do this, would you have any advice?,” she would often say when approaching colleagues and experts.
“Be vulnerable, be willing to learn and absorb it all . [Don’t let go of] your true north star and everything falls into place from there.”
Digitizing the OR
With Proximie’s software, clinicians from all around the world can virtually scrub into an OR. Using cameras installed in the operating room, and feeds from laparoscopy and robotic devices, the surgery is transmitted via augmented reality. People can flip between views with very little lag time and small bandwidth demand. Data can be stored on the cloud to be reviewed later for teaching and training purposes. Dr. Hachach-Haram’s technology allows for enhancement of medical training and surgical care around the world while democratizing access to best practices for all patients.
While developing her solution, Dr. Hachach-Haram was aware that for surgeons to engage with it, she had to offer a pleasant experience. Through easy sign in processes — just 3 clicks — and other elegant UX features, Dr. Hachach-Haram sees surgeons wanting to use Proximie again and again. She noted that ease of use would be central to its scalability.
“If it takes 9 months to implement Proximie in one hospital, there is no way we will [be able to] scale.”
To reach an optimal prototype, she spent significant time conducting focus groups to understand the interests and needs of various stakeholders, including medical students, physicians, device representatives, health systems.
“It is not about technology,” she explains, “it is about driving behavioral change.”
By now, Proximie has been used to connect expert surgeons in the US to teams in Peru and El Salvador that care for patients with cleft lip and palate. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Proximie was employed in over 20% of NHS hospitals in the UK to limit the number of people physically present in the OR, while increasing clinical expertise. After the tragic explosion in Beirut in 2020, Proximie was also used to democratize access be the best reconstructive surgery techniques. Moreover, it has been used in 35 different countries and in more than 6,000 procedures.
“It is not about being trendy or cool — people will only use those [solutions] once or twice. It is about developing a solution for an existing problem and not about developing a solution and trying to fit it [to] a problem.”
Interested in surgery, telehealth, addressing healthcare disparities, or augmented reality? Check out Spotlight on Women in Healthcare Ventures on Spotify and Anchor!
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Story written by Luiza Perez , Priya Kumar, Katie Donahey, and Ankeeta Shah.
