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.