The Daily Scanner – OrthAlign’s Handheld Navigation Finds a Sweet Spot as Outpatient Joint Replacements Surge
By Michael Fernandez on December 31, 2025
Original article
The biggest shift in joint replacement isn’t happening inside the implant; it’s happening around the operating room.
Across the U.S., hip and knee replacements are increasingly moving out of hospitals and into ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), driven by payer pressure, patient demand for faster recovery, and advances in perioperative care. In 2025, orthopedic leaders have described the year as a turning point defined by tighter margins, accelerated outpatient migration, and a rising wave of surgical tech adoption from robotics to navigation platforms.
That backdrop helps explain why OrthAlign, a Southern California medtech company focused on handheld navigation for total joint replacement, is attracting more attention in healthcare tech circles. Its pitch is not a futuristic robot arm or a million-dollar operating room overhaul. Instead, OrthAlign is betting on something simpler: pocket-sized navigation tools that use sensor technology to guide implant positioning in real time without the infrastructure and workflow disruption often associated with capital-intensive systems.
Why handheld navigation is showing up in the news cycle now
The timing is telling. In late 2024, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized payment and policy updates that took effect January 1, 2025; changes that reinforced the economic gravity by pulling more procedures toward outpatient settings. The rule updates both the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System and ASC Payment System, including policies affecting device payment and quality reporting requirements.
For ASCs, these policy moves matter because they influence which procedures are financially viable outside the hospital, and how tightly facilities must manage efficiency. Orthopedic stakeholders have been particularly focused on scaling joint replacement in ASCs, where capacity, turnover time, and space constraints often determine whether new technology can realistically be adopted.
OrthAlign’s technology appears built for this environment.
A different approach than robotics, closer to “lightweight intelligence”
OrthAlign’s flagship navigation platform, Lantern, is designed around a handheld device and disposable components that provide alignment guidance during surgery. It targets the same goal that robotics and large-console navigation systems emphasize (improved accuracy and consistency) but it does so with fewer demands on room setup, footprint, and training time.
That distinction has become more relevant as robotics expands. While robotic systems continue to gain market share, supported by flexible pricing models and increasing interest in AI-enabled workflows, surgeons and ASC administrators have also been vocal about practical barriers: cost, learning curve, and the complexity of adding another major system into busy operating rooms.
In other words, the market is trending toward “precision technology everywhere,” but the form factor isn’t settled. OrthAlign’s bet is that not every facility wants, or needs, robotics to achieve navigated accuracy.
Strategy: leaning into the ASC economy
OrthAlign’s strategic focus on ASCs is also visible at the leadership level. In May 2025, the company announced that Brett Brodnax joined its board of directors, describing the move as a step toward accelerating growth in outpatient joint replacement innovation.
It’s a signal that OrthAlign is reading the same tea leaves as the rest of the sector: the joint replacement “center of gravity” is shifting; and technology that can travel with it, rather than tether itself to large hospital systems, may have an advantage.
The big question: will lightweight navigation become the default?
Handheld navigation doesn’t generate the same buzz as robotics, but the market has a long history of “quiet” technologies becoming standard once they prove scalable. For OrthAlign, the next phase is less about novelty and more about outcomes; whether surgeon confidence, alignment consistency, and long-term patient results show measurable gains across broader populations.
As joint replacement volumes climb and outpatient economics continue reshaping surgical care, tools like OrthAlign’s Lantern platform may represent a growing category: precision tech designed for speed, flexibility, and scale—without rewriting the operating room.