Jay Banerjee, Co-Founder & COO, ImmersiveTouch
In today’s fast-evolving business environment, organizations are facing more complex and competitive challenges than ever before. Thus, with change being a constant for all business domains, there is a dire need for leaders who can navigate the complex business landscape, better understand customer requirements, and employ emerging technologies to solve the most pressing challenges in their industry with their expertise and pioneering approach. Alongside traditional management skills, a modern-day leader must possess exceptional leadership qualities such as vision, strategic thinking, and innovative mindset. A leader must essentially keep track of the latest innovations and make effective use of technology to offer better solutions and create an impact in the lives of others.
We, at APAC Entrepreneur, came across one such leader, Jay Banerjee, who is committed to tackling some of the biggest problems in healthcare with his innovative approach. Innovation and the passion to deliver impact at scale have always been driving factors for Jay. He commenced his career as a project manager at JP Morgan Chase. But his unrelenting passion and drive for improving healthcare led his way to ImmersiveTouch, a pioneering Chicago-based company offering virtual reality medical devices that convert 2D patient images into 3D simulations for surgical planning and training.
Jay discovered that an extraordinary amount of the GDP is spent on healthcare in the U.S., with trillions spent on surgeries alone. Utilizing his Systems Engineering degree, he decided to tackle the healthcare challenges such as procedural demand, the surgeon shortage crisis, and the decrease in reimbursements, through technology. In 2014, he joined ImmersiveTouch as a co-founder and currently serves as COO, overseeing sales, marketing, strategic partnerships, products, finance, and HR. Leveraging the power of innovation, Jay is steering the company towards growth and success while empowering clinicians with greater precision and consistency of care.
Providing Surgeons with Unprecedented Clarity in Patient Scans
Today ImmersiveTouch stands tall as a leading medical technology company building the digital surgery metaverse. The company’s FDA 510(k) cleared proprietary platform improves upon existing advanced visualization techniques by integrating artificial intelligence, computer vision, surgical simulation, and virtual reality. Its VR platform, provides Mission Rehearsal®, giving surgeons the ability to virtually plan and simulate each patient’s unique anatomy in 3D, prior to entering the operating room.
“Over the past 50 years, the introduction of new imaging technologies has ushered in the era of personalized medicine. Although CT and MRI scans were first introduced in the 1970s, it is only now, since 2019, that we are able to unlock the full potential of data stored inside each scan. We provide the next generation of surgeons with unprecedented clarity in patient scans and removes the need for an engineer,” shares Jay.
ImmersiveView™ VR creates a ‘digital twin’ of the patient from CT, CBCT, 3D angiography, and MRI images, providing a completely unique and unencumbered view of each case. This allows the surgeons to observe the target anatomy clearly and correctly without being confined to certain angles of view. “Our goal is to serve the surgeon by providing the latest technology to guide and validate the surgical approach; integrating AI, computer vision, surgical simulation, and VR in creating patient intake and reducing surgical times,” adds Jay.
Cultivating a Positive and Supportive Work Environment
Being a co-founder of a tech company, Jay believes that having a positive work culture is imperative. Thus, at ImmersiveTouch, he focuses on promoting a positive and supportive work environment where employees are encouraged to collaborate in groups, grow in their careers, and are given perks and rewards for success.
Jay asserts, “My motivation stems from the help we are providing to the healthcare industry. It is more than just about providing a service and technology to surgeons. It is seeing how helpful our solution is to surgeons who are stressed, overworked, and understaffed; how it can assist with patient education and understanding; and how it provides surgeons with insight into their cases prior to the operating room.”
Continues On the Path of Innovation
Sharing his knowledge and expertise, Jay advises all aspiring entrepreneurs to find something they love as they will always want to stick with it. He also encourages them to work hard to stay active and maintain a healthy lifestyle. “I meditate twice a day helping me to overcome the strain and stress of running a company; it also provides me with the mental clarity to make the best possible decisions,” affirms Jay.
When it comes to the future, Jay has several strategic plans for ImmersiveTouch. The company aims to create a unified digital surgery platform that includes all surgical procedures that require personalized patient-specific imaging. This will include technology such as AR to navigate procedures in operations, VR to simulate procedures, and AI to improve its surgical training platform. Recently, ImmersiveTouch entered a collaboration with Mayo Clinic to create an augmented reality surgery navigation platform. Moving ahead, it intends to continue its innovation to build products that its customers need. “ImmersiveTouch has seen its userbase grow to almost three times its size and we expect more than half of the hospitals in the US to be using this technology within the next three years,” concludes Jay.