Varied Perspectives on Hospital-based 3D Printing: Qualified Healthcare Professionals

The advent of 3D printing and extended reality (XR) technologies have transformed aspects of the clinical practice landscape across multiple domains. While there are standardization efforts and emerging clinical guidelines to push for consistency of 3D technology implementation, the use of 3D technologies is still very institution specific.

This presentation brings together a diverse selection of clinical professionals from a pediatric non-profit hospital—a cardiac surgeon, an interventionalist, pa lastic surgeon, an orthopedic surgeon, and an otolaryngologist—to explore how these technologies are enhancing surgical planning and patient care. Our institution currently supports cardiac surgeons through the creation of patient-matched heart models (computational and 3D printed) for better understanding of congenital defects and biventricular repair strategies. Our interventionalists utilize 3D-printed models to simulate procedures like stent placements and catheter-based interventions with the intent of minimizing procedural risk. For our plastic surgeons, 3D printing enables the creation of customized templates for patient-matched reconstruction techniques. Our institution regularly prints scoliosis and hip dysplasia models for intraoperative reference for our orthopedic surgeons. Our otolaryngologists benefit from detailed anatomical replicas, especially with regards to the airway and airway-effecting congenital lesions. Even with these numerous applications, the qualified healthcare professionals are quick to point out current limitations and opportunities in the near horizon.

This presentation will feature vignettes from in-house interviews on the effectiveness of 3d technologies; we will discuss the integration of 3D printing and XR in their clinical workflows, share real-world examples, and examine the challenges and opportunities that these technologies present – from their own perspective.