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How new surgical technologies reshape

a team dynamic in the operating room ?

2020 - present

Funded by Eemil Aaltonen Foundation

 

 

Supervised by

Prof. Roman Bednarik

Interactive Technologies,

University of Eastern Finland

My role:

HCI researcher

Research methodologies:

field study, observation, interview

Challenge

While microscopes have been used as a fundamental visualization tool in microsurgery over several decades, 3D exoscopes have been recently introduced as an alternative to the microscopes.

The exoscopes enable surgeons to perform surgeries in a head-up position. In this regard, most research has investigated the technical and surgical benefits of exoscopes from the surgeon’s perspectives. As new technology not only shapes individual experience but also reconfigures team dynamics in the operating room (OR), we investigate how the 3D exoscope system alters the existing practice of surgical team members (i.e., assistant surgeons, scrub nurses, and circulating nurses) who are not the primary users (i.e., a primary surgeon) but who closely collaborate with them in the OR.

Drawing on observations and interviews, we examine what concomitant effects were created by the 3D exoscope.

Research Aim

  • Understand how new surgical technologies reshape surgical workflow in the operating room

  • Examine how the secondary users (e.g., nurses, assistant surgeons) perceive and evaluate new surgical technologies

  • Develop a design guideline for an operating room that can minimize the tensions raised by new surgical interventions

Publications

  • Lee, A., & Bednairk, R. (2021). 3D Exoscopes in Microsurgery: How 3D Exoscopes Reconfigure the Workflow of Assistant Surgeons and Nurses in the Operating Room. Conference Companion Publication of the 2021 on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW).  DOI: 10.1145/3462204.3481760

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