SAGES 2026 Annual Meeting Emerging Technology Session

SimNow 2.0 as a Training and Assessment Tool
for Robotic Surgical Skills: A Pilot Validation Study
Tansel Halic, PhD; Niranjan Sathivel, MD; Nuvi Njinimbam, MBA; Aditya R. Ashammagari, MS; Gretchen P. Jackson, MD PhD; Henry Lin, PhD; Andrew Yee, PhD
Intuitive Surgical Inc.

Introduction

This study evaluates the clinical relevance and content validity of SimNow™ 2.0 as a training and assessment tool for robotic surgical skills.

•SimNow™ 2.0 is a VR-based training platform for da Vinci surgical systems with 38 progressive exercises.

•Exercises incorporate quantitative performance metrics to support objective feedback and assessment.

•The pilot study examines user perception and training value across different experience levels.

Methods

A pilot study was conducted to evaluate the training value and content validity of selected SimNow™ 2.0 simulation modules.

Subject Study

Subjects: 36 surgeons participated the study: 17 naïve, 12 novice, 7 expert.

Study Protocol:

Participants completed three warm-up tasks followed by 3 trials of 4 simulation modules (see Figure 1):

•Cold Cut Dissection, Four-Arm Relocation, Active Retraction

and Needle Targeting exercises.

Performance metrics were automatically recorded during each exercise.

Survey Evaluation:

•Participants completed a post-session survey (5-point Likert scale) assessing clinical relevance, training value, and skill applicability.

•Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA and Content Validity Index (CVI) were used for statistical analysis.

Preliminary Results

Participants reported (see Figure 2.) strong agreement regarding the clinical relevance and training value of SimNow ™ 2.0

•High agreement on clinical relevance of SimNow™ 2.0 (mean = 4.5 ± 0.8).

•Exercises rated effective for improving surgical efficiency (4.3 ± 0.7) and skill retention (4.3 ± 0.8).

•Participants reported increased confidence in robotic skills (4.4 ± 0.8).

•No significant differences was found between experience groups (ANOVA).

•Scale-level Content Validity Index (CVI) and Item-level CVI: 1.0 (perfect agreement) and 0.825 (high inter-rater agreement) respectively.

Conclusion

SimNow ™ 2.0 demonstrates strong clinical relevance and content validity as a robotic surgery training platform. The system provides:

•Structured skill development objective performance metrics

•Consistent training value across experience levels

•Potential to serve as an effective training and assessment tool for robotic surgical skill acquisition.

SAGES 2026 Annual Meeting Emerging Technology Session

SimNow 2.0 as a Training and Assessment Tool for Robotic Surgical Skills: A Pilot Validation Study.

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