The challenge
Learning this tool meant getting to a physical system, which meant travel, scheduling, and waiting for a robotic unit to be free. Residents and experienced surgeons needed different things from it, and the in-person model could not give either group much repetition.
In the operating room, trust is built through repetition, but access to that repetition is inherently limited, creating barriers to confidence and adoption.
A curriculum-wide approach
Monarch Learning Labs developed a digital twin of an intraoperative planning tool, enabling surgeons and clinical teams to interact with the same interface and workflows in a browser-based environment. By extending access beyond the physical system, users could build familiarity through repetition before entering the operating room.
It sat inside the curriculum the company already ran, and served both the residents learning the basics and the experienced surgeons arguing about a specific case.
What the visualization changed
Learners could see how a planning decision on alignment, positioning or balance changed the intraoperative outcome, then change it and look again. Residents used that to learn the basics; experienced surgeons used it to argue about specific cases.
Combined with repeatable interaction, it helped shorten the learning curve and build confidence earlier in adoption. In practice, this led to more prepared conversations in the operating room and greater familiarity with system workflows at the point of use.
No system, no travel, no waiting
Surgeons and sales teams could open the real planning workflow without traveling or waiting for a robotic unit to free up. That is what made repetition practical rather than theoretical.
Access extended beyond the primary operator to clinical teams and OR teams, improving alignment and shared understanding. As familiarity increased across roles, confidence improved, helping reduce variability and support smoother procedural adoption.
Where it stands, and what is next
The digital twin gave the company a way to teach the tool that did not depend on hardware being available. People could start earlier and repeat more often, and they were familiar with the workflow before they entered the operating room.
Faculty-led sessions were captured and reused, so the same teaching did not have to be delivered live every time.
Getting people past familiarity and into advanced proficiency needs more structure than this first build has. The next phase adds formal scenarios, assessment, and feedback.
