Technology

The Best-Kept Secret in Surgical Robotics Ecosystems AI

Published

1 hour ago

June 16, 2026

At the Society of Robotic Surgery’s 2026 meeting, one message is clear: surgical robotics has evolved beyond standalone devices into integrated, software-driven ecosystems spanning AI, digital OR workflows, telesurgery, and regulatory coordination. The industry’s “best-kept secret” isn’t a single breakthrough—it’s the network of specialized partners enabling these complex systems behind the scenes. Leaders increasingly succeed not by building everything in-house, but by focusing on core differentiation while collaborating across software, hardware, connectivity, AI, and compliance. Key players like MedAcuity, NVIDIA, RTI, and Kinova exemplify this model, working together across complementary layers—from real-time data infrastructure and AI simulation to medical-grade robotics and regulated software development. Their repeated collaboration highlights a scalable, ecosystem-based approach that accelerates innovation, reduces risk, and supports modern surgical demands. As SRS 2026 emphasizes AI adoption, distributed care, training, and regulatory evolution, it reinforces a pivotal shift: the future of surgical robotics belongs to companies that master partnership as much as technology.

WESTFORD, Mass., June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ —

The Best-Kept Secret in Surgical Robotics

When the Society of Robotic Surgery convenes this July in Hollywood, Florida, the official program makes one thing unmistakable: surgical robotics is no longer just a device story. The 2026 meeting spans regulatory boundaries, simulation and education, hospital administration, AI as a health-system priority, digital OR workflows, distributed surgical care, and telesurgery adoption. That is a strong signal that the field has moved from isolated products to integrated operating ecosystems.

That is also why the industry’s best-kept secret is not a stealth startup or a single breakthrough feature. It is the quietly powerful ecosystem of specialist partners working behind the brands that get the awards, the first-case press releases, and the market recognition. In a field where performance, latency, AI, clinical workflow, cybersecurity, interoperability, and regulatory evidence all have to work together, the companies that insist on building every layer alone are often not the most disciplined operators. The smarter companies are increasingly the ones that know exactly what to own and exactly where to partner.

The signal hiding in the agenda

The SRS agenda reads less like a traditional device conference and more like a blueprint for the modern robotics stack. On one side are sessions on “Global Regulatory Perspectives on Digital and Robotic Surgery,” “Telerobotic and distributed surgical care,” and “Cross-Cutting Evidence Expectations.” On another are workshops on simulation, credentialing, competency-based training, and AI for the learning surgeon. Add sessions on “Artificial Intelligence: From Hype to Health System Priority,” “The Digital OR,” and “Financing, Governance, and Innovation for Scalable Telesurgery,” and the message is clear: success now depends on coordinated expertise across software, hardware, networks, data, compliance, and clinical adoption.

That breadth matters because it exposes the weakness in the old assumption that the best, fastest, and cheapest path is always to keep everything in-house. In surgical robotics, the problem is rarely a lack of ambition. It is usually the multiplication of layers. A team may be excellent at instruments or procedure design, but much less differentiated in low-latency connectivity, runtime AI infrastructure, teleoperation controls, secure-by-design architecture, or the documentation rigor needed for regulated software. The agenda is practically a map of those seams.

Why the all-in-house myth is breaking down

The case against “build everything ourselves” is not philosophical. It is architectural. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to stress cybersecurity design, premarket documentation, threat modeling, lifecycle management, and the need for manufacturers and healthcare organizations to work together on risk management. At the same time, the SRS program shows that remote surgery, rural deployment, structured training, and AI-enabled workflows are no longer hypothetical side topics; they are central operating concerns. The more the field becomes software-defined and networked, the less credible it is to assume one internal team should master every enabling layer equally well.

That does not mean outsourcing indiscriminately. It means being honest about where differentiation lives. If your value is procedural insight, surgeon workflow, clinical evidence, or a specific therapy category, then your highest-return move may be to keep that core in-house while assembling proven partners for the parts that are necessary but not uniquely yours to invent. MedAcuity and Kinova make that point directly in their public requirements work: poorly defined requirements create rework, budget inflation, and compliance problems, while a unified hardware-software requirements approach reduces rework, supports modularity, and improves time to market.

The partnership stack behind the leaders

MedAcuity publicly positions itself around complex medical and robotics software; NVIDIA around AI, simulation, and deployment for healthcare robotics; Real-Time Innovations (RTI) around real-time, data-centric connectivity for intelligent physical systems; and Kinova around off-the-shelf and tailored medical-grade robotic systems. That is why the quiet network represented by MedAcuity and its robotics leaders Shawn Vanseth and Tom Amlicke, NVIDIA and healthcare/medical leader David Niewolny, RTI market leaders Jim Bentley, Darren Porras and Kevin Meyer, and Kinova with medical robotics leader François Boucher deserves more attention. These are the people you should be working with.

These companies are not merely adjacent vendors. Their own public materials increasingly describe one another as partners, collaborators, or enabling layers in the same solution path. MedAcuity’s partner page names RTI and Kinova as strategic partners; MedAcuity’s telesurgery content describes teleoperation work with RTI; RTI’s Kinova announcement says the collaboration was developed with MedAcuity; and both RTI and Kinova publicly tie their work to NVIDIA Isaac for Healthcare. This is what a tightly coupled ecosystem looks like in practice: a recurring pattern of companies showing up together because they solve different parts of the same system.

The Partners Who Stop Innovators From Reinventing

MedAcuity is the software-and-systems anchor in this group. The company says it specializes in complex, software-intensive solutions for MedTech, life sciences, and robotics; highlights more than 500 completed projects, more than 100 software engineers, and a repeat-business rate above 90 percent; and explicitly positions its robotics work around robotic-assisted surgery, teleoperation, high-reliability software, real-time control, haptics, 4K video integration, and standards including IEC 62304, ISO 13485, ISO 14971, and FDA quality-system expectations. In other words, MedAcuity sits where architecture, requirements, verification, quality, and regulated delivery converge.

NVIDIA brings the AI and simulation acceleration layer. Isaac for Healthcare is described by NVIDIA as a purpose-built platform for simulation, training, and deployment of AI-enabled medical robotics, with workflows that span surgical and interventional robotics and even include a remote telesurgery reference application. NVIDIA’s broader healthcare robotics messaging emphasizes digital twins, physical AI, real-time execution, and infrastructure built for the safety and regulatory rigor of surgery, imaging, and hospital environments. That is why this is not “AI for AI’s sake.” It is infrastructure for moving from concept to validated robotic behavior with fewer blind spots.

RTI software brings the data plane that too many teams underestimate until integration becomes the bottleneck. RTI Connext is a decentralized, real-time data streaming platform built for intelligent physical systems. It emphasizes low latency, throughput, no single point of failure, and interoperability across sensors, devices, algorithms, and cloud infrastructure. In healthcare and medical robotics, RTI explicitly frames connectivity as the foundation for digital surgery platforms, including remote surgery, monitoring, AI integration, analytics, and distributed applications that must behave like one system. That is not back-office plumbing. In surgical robotics, it is a foundational – and frontline–performance layer.

Kinova brings the hardware and productization layer that many OEMs should not want to build from zero. Kinova accelerates the journey to market through off-the-shelf and tailored medical-grade robotic systems, including arms, actuators, tool drives, and development services. Kinova’s own materials position its medical robotics portfolio around surgical and diagnostic applications, while its public case studies show real-world use in surgical navigation, interventional workflows, and multi-robot frameworks. In practical terms, Kinova lets innovators start from a serious, modular hardware foundation rather than burning years rediscovering what mature robot platforms already solved.

Why the overlap matters more than any single logo

The real power of this ecosystem is not any one company’s strength in isolation. It is the overlap. MedAcuity has shown strategic alignment with RTI and Kinova in its partner ecosystem and telesurgery content. RTI and Kinova have announced an integrated medical robotics platform that simplifies and accelerates product lifecycles, reduces program risk, and connects robotics to larger digital ecosystems that include AI, sensing, visualization, and interoperability. RTI Connext integrates with NVIDIA Isaac for Healthcare and Holoscan, giving healthcare robotics developers a way to connect real-time applications with AI workflows. When these capabilities are assembled intentionally, they become more than a vendor list; they become a repeatable acceleration model.

The public demonstrations are especially telling. MedAcuity, RTI, Kinova, and Haply described a telesurgery prototype built in 60 days, and RTI’s own announcement said a MedAcuity-developed demo allowed users to manipulate a Kinova robotic arm located 3,000 miles away. MedAcuity’s teleoperation content similarly frames remote surgery as an ecosystem problem that requires real-time communication infrastructure, safety-critical architecture, and coordinated integration across operating systems and platforms. That is the quiet proof point behind the larger argument: innovation moves faster when proven layers are composed well.

A look at the public record also suggests how common this partnership model already is. Johnson & Johnson MedTech is working with NVIDIA on AI in surgery, and NVIDIA’s 2026 healthcare robotics messaging also points to work with CMR Surgical and Medtronic in the physical-AI stack. RTI highlights its role with Levita Magnetics and the MARS surgical robotic platform, while Kinova publicly showcases work with Atlas Medical Technologies and other medical robotics efforts. MedAcuity, for its part, reports dozens of surgical robotics clients globally with hundreds of successfully completed projects and a repeat-business rate above 90 percent. The confidential work is invisible by definition; the visible work already tells you the ecosystem is larger than most people think.

What to watch at SRS this summer

If you are walking the halls at SRS in Hollywood, Florida this July, look for the themes that match this ecosystem almost perfectly. Watch the AI track, where David Niewolny is scheduled to speak on AI moving from hype to health-system priority. Watch the telesurgery and distributed care sessions, where the questions are no longer whether remote surgery is exciting, but what it takes to say yes at scale. Watch the simulation and training program, where structured adoption, credentialing, and competency are being treated as strategic infrastructure. And watch the regulatory track, where the unsettled boundaries of digital and robotic surgery are still being actively defined. Kinova will unveil for the first time its new medical-grade robot arm Kima, a system purpose-built for the operating room to accelerate next-generation system development for OEMs.

Then take a look around the exhibit floor and the broader meeting ecosystem. The Society of Robotic Surgery’s 2026 meeting page lists MedAcuity, Kinova, and RTI among the exhibitors and industry supporters, while the agenda puts NVIDIA directly into the healthcare-AI conversation. That is the point of this article and the call to action it leads to: if you are attending SRS this summer in Florida, pay close attention to the companies doing the deeply technical, deeply enabling work that makes other companies look spectacular. They will probably never insist on the credit. The success of their mutual clients, is their success. But once you know what to look for, the best-kept secret in surgical robotics stops being a secret at all.

For more information:

www.medacuity.com

www.rti.com

www.nvidia.com

www.kinovarobotics.com

Media Contact

Lisa Burns, MedAcuity, 1 866.376.1931, lburns@medacuity.com, https://www.medacuity.com/

View original content:https://www.prweb.com/releases/the-best-kept-secret-in-surgical-robotics-ecosystems-ai-302801876.html

SOURCE MedAcuity

Technology

Ping An Good Doctor Upgrades AI Doctor Service “Ping An AI Doctor”, Expanding Access to Ping An Ecosystem’s 90 Million MAUs

Published

3 minutes ago

June 16, 2026

HONG KONG, June 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited (“Ping An Good Doctor” or the “Company”, Stock Code: 1833.HK) has recently upgraded its AI doctor service — Ping An AI Doctor. The service has been fully integrated into a number of core applications under Ping An Group, including Ping An Jin Guan Jia, Ping An Auto Owner, Ping An Pocket Bank and Ping An Le Health, reaching 90 million monthly active users.

Powered by the Ping An Medical Master® large model, the upgraded Ping An AI Doctor has established a service model centered on “AI responses in seconds + full-process supervision by human doctors”. It is also deeply connected with the platform’s unique “online, in-hospital, in-home, and in-company” healthcare service network. By integrating intelligent medical capabilities with a full-scenario ecosystem, Ping An AI Doctor is expected to promote the scalable, routine and inclusive implementation of premium family doctor services, providing the public with digital solutions for full-cycle health management.

Ping An AI Doctor breaks through the functional limitations of conventional intelligent Q&A tools. By deeply applying AI large models to clinical assistance scenarios, it can standardize professional services such as preliminary symptom screening, condition assessment, medication safety guidance, health risk assessment and personalized plan formulation. The platform supports 24/7 uninterrupted service and intelligent responses within seconds, responding to common daily health consultation needs in as fast as three seconds. This significantly shortens the time required for the public to access basic medical services and lowers the threshold for use.

To ensure medical quality and safety, the platform has established a full-process human doctor review mechanism. All diagnosis and treatment suggestions and health guidance plans generated by AI are reviewed and calibrated by licensed practicing physicians. For difficult conditions, complex chronic diseases or potential risks of serious conditions, the system will also automatically transfer the case to human doctors for follow-up, with specialists providing one-on-one in-depth consultations, thereby achieving “intelligent acceleration and efficiency enhancement, with professional medical support as a safeguard.”

Leveraging Ping An Group’s ecosystem advantages in multi-business collaboration, users do not need to download a separate application or mini-program. Instead, they can access relevant services with one click through high-frequency Ping An ecosystem portals, including insurance, banking and auto owner services. In terms of service system development, Ping An AI Doctor integrates Ping An’s full-scenario medical resources across “online, in-hospital, in-home, and in-company” settings, forming a closed-loop health management service chain. It also offers functions such as health assessments, electronic medical records management, health checkup report interpretation and chronic disease management, covering healthy and sub-healthy populations as well as patients with common chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and hyperlipidemia.

In medical service scenarios, Ping An AI Doctor connects users with more than 3,500 contracted experts from Grade A tertiary hospitals, over 5,100 partner hospitals and 240,000 branded chain pharmacies, providing one-stop services including precise triage, expert appointment booking, medical accompaniment and hospitalization assistance. Meanwhile, it supports emergency medication delivery in as fast as one hour, as well as in-home services such as home nursing, home-based health and elderly care, and postpartum recovery, further enhancing family health service scenarios.

Ping An Good Doctor will continue to deepen innovation in medical technology, iteratively enhance AI clinical assistance capabilities, and continuously expand high-quality offline medical resources and specialized health and elderly care services. The Company will further enrich full-scenario healthcare services, empower people’s health through technology, safeguard family wellbeing with professional services, and continue contributing to the digital development of Healthy China.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/ping-an-good-doctor-upgrades-ai-doctor-service-ping-an-ai-doctor-expanding-access-to-ping-an-ecosystems-90-million-maus-302802017.html

SOURCE Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited

Technology

Avochato Brings HIPAA-Compliant AI Texting to Healthcare

Published

3 minutes ago

June 16, 2026

Healthcare organizations can now deploy AI agents on a messaging platform independently certified for security and privacy every year since 2019

MILL VALLEY, Calif., June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Avochato, the AI-powered business messaging platform, today announced HIPAA-compliant AI texting for the healthcare industry, alongside the completion of its seventh consecutive year of SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance certifications by Linford & Company, LLP.

Healthcare teams have been quick to adopt texting because patients read and answer texts far faster than phone calls or emails. But most AI messaging tools were not built to handle protected health information. Avochato closes that gap: hospitals, clinics, healthcare staffing agencies, and home-care providers can now use real-time AI agents, AI-suggested replies, and conversation insights across SMS, RCS, voice, and live chat, all within a platform independently audited for security and privacy seven years running.

“AI is transforming how healthcare organizations communicate, and in this industry trust is the foundation,” said Alex De Simone, Co-founder and CEO of Avochato. “By building on Anthropic’s models with zero data retention, and pairing that with seven consecutive years of SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance, Avochato customers don’t have to choose between moving fast with AI and protecting sensitive data. They can do both.”

AI Built for Regulated Conversations

With Avochato, healthcare teams can:

Fill shifts and confirm appointments faster with automated, personalized outreach at scale, plus AI-suggested responses that keep reply times lowDeploy AI agents that answer common patient and staff questions instantly and hand off seamlessly to a human when a conversation needs oneTrain AI agents on their own content, from intake FAQs to scheduling policies, using custom knowledge basesKeep every conversation visible in a shared, auditable team inbox, so no patient message or shift request slips through the cracksTrack sentiment in real time, with AI-generated ratings, conversation summaries, and suggested next actions for every conversation

“We fill shifts in minutes that used to take hours of phone calls,” said the director of operations at a national healthcare staffing agency with more than 10,000 active clinicians.

Avochato’s HIPAA-compliant AI capabilities run on Claude, Anthropic’s family of frontier AI models known for safety and reliability in enterprise settings. For healthcare customers, Avochato runs Claude under a zero-data-retention configuration, meaning protected health information processed by the AI is never stored or used for model training. The result is AI that meets the standard healthcare compliance teams actually require, not just the standard the industry markets.

Avochato signs Business Associate Agreements with healthcare customers that choose the HIPAA plan. Healthcare organizations can learn more and start a free trial at www.avochato.com/signup.

Security That’s Verified

Avochato’s seventh consecutive SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA certifications reflect safeguards built into every layer of the platform:

Encryption of all data in transit and at restSingle Sign On with Okta, Microsoft Azure, Salesforce, and GoogleMulti-factor authentication restricts access to verified usersRole-based access controls so administrators can define exactly who sees whatContent obfuscation for sensitive information, including media attachments

About Avochato

Avochato helps teams manage calls, texts, and chats in one secure inbox. Trusted by thousands of businesses across healthcare, professional services, logistics, and more than a dozen other industries, Avochato supports two-way communication through SMS, MMS, RCS, phone calls, and live chat, with integrations for Okta, Salesforce, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and more. Learn more at www.avochato.com.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/avochato-brings-hipaa-compliant-ai-texting-to-healthcare-302802020.html

SOURCE Avochato

Technology

BluIP and Oracle Hospitality Implement New Platform for Loews Hotels & Co.

Published

3 minutes ago

June 16, 2026

LAS VEGAS, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — BluIP completed a new project for the guest engagement center at Loews Hotels & Co. This was a collaboration between Loews Customer Engagement Center and the team at BluIP with support and partnership from Oracle Hospitality OPERA Cloud. The cloud-based solution consists of communication solutions, tightly integrated with Loews’ Central Reservations and PMS platforms.

Loews had a goal to unify channels, integrate with Oracle OPERA Cloud, and provide team members with guest details the instant an interaction begins. BluIP stepped in to architect and deliver the solution.

BluIP deployed the voice, chat, messaging, analytics, and workforce management, and layered on hospitality-specific integrations that BluIP is known for in the industry. As guest inquiries arrive, the system now pulls reservation details, guest profile data, and past interactions from OPERA Cloud and presents them directly inside the agent’s guest engagement center interface. If the guest begins on chat using BluIP AIVA® — asking about pet policies or requesting to change a reservation — context follows the interaction if it’s escalated to a live agent. No one repeats confirmation numbers or dates.

“Loews set a clear bar: make every interaction feel personal and effortless,” said Armen Martirosyan, CEO at BluIP. “By pairing Loews guest engagement center platform with Oracle OPERA Cloud PMS integration and BluIP’s technical, hospitality industry, and operational expertise, we gave agents the context they need the instant they say hello, and we delivered the complete solution in five months.”

Team Members also gained an enterprise-wide, custom routing directory created by BluIP and directly integrated into Loews guest engagement center platform. With it, a call can be transferred to a hotel property, department, or individual extension with a few keystrokes—whether it’s the front desk in Coronado or a chef in Kansas City.

“Our guests should have a seamless and well executed stay,” said Heather Girolami, a Senior Vice President with Loews Hotels & Co. “Team Members now see the reservation, the dates, and the request the moment a chat or call lands. We’re taking care of our guests with less friction.”

BluIP and Oracle Hospitality completed the full deployment and integration in just five months, beginning January 1, 2025, going live in May of that year and now handling over 1.1 million interactions per month.

“Oracle Hospitality is committed to enabling our customers to deliver exceptional, personalized guest experiences at every touchpoint,” said Tanya Pratt, global vice president, strategy and product management, Oracle Hospitality. “The Loews project demonstrates the power of Oracle OPERA Cloud’s open architecture when paired with the right partner. Loews is now delivering context-aware service across every channel via more than 1.1 million interactions per month, anchored by the guest data that lives in Oracle OPERA Cloud.”

For BluIP, this project further proves the thesis: connect platforms properly and deeply, and the interaction model changes. Hotels stop opening conversations by collecting data and can continue their focus on servicing guests.

About BluIP
BluIP is a global carrier and leader in AI-powered communications for hospitality, healthcare, and enterprise. Its AIVA Connect platform delivers conversational AI, omni-channel engagement, analytics, and 2,800+ integrations, including 35+ PMS systems, powering more than 600,000 guest rooms worldwide. Visit bluip.com.

About Oracle Hospitality
Oracle technology serves independent hoteliers, global hotel chains, casinos, and cruise lines in over 230 countries and territories. Our cloud-native solutions connect the entire business from the front desk to the dining room and back office, and our customers use intuitive tools and AI insights to fuel frictionless guest experiences, maximize profitability, and encourage long-term loyalty. To learn more, please visit www.oracle.com/hospitality.

MEDIA CONTACT
Beth McClure
Head of Marketing, BluIP
(866) 443-6494
info@bluip.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bluip-and-oracle-hospitality-implement-new-platform-for-loews-hotels–co-302802025.html

SOURCE BluIP, Inc.