Jacob Rosen, Ph.D.
Department of Electrical Engineering (BioRobotics Lab)
"The Operating Room of the Future - New Generation of Surgical Robotics"


ABSTRACT

Today's operating room (OR) encompasses clusters of technologies that migrated into the room as a result of an evolutionary process. In addition, during the past decade surgical robotic systems were introduced and incorporated into this crowded environment which made the OR a highly inefficient working space.

Analysis of the surgical robot's role in the currently available OR setup demonstrates that the surgeon can be safely removed from the immediate surgical scene and maintain interaction with the patient in a teleoperational mode. Although this revolutionary mode of operation may have benefits for the patient, it is far from being efficient due to the lack of supporting technologies. The increased setup and operational time of the current robotic systems are due to lack of automation and the presence of sophisticated interfaces. As a result, the simple act of changing tools or readjusting the robot's position produces inefficient interactions between the scrub and circulating nurses and this technology.

The OR of the future as it is currently envisioned will contain only one human being: the patient. All medical staff, including surgeons and nurses, will be removed from the OR and will be replaced during surgery in part by hardware in the form of supportive electromechanical devices, as well as software for documenting assisting and assessing the operation. The talk will be focused on research, design and optimization of a new surgical robot in the framework of the OR of the future.