Methods to Characterize Operating Room Variables in Robotic Surgery to Enhance Patient Safety

Surgical team experience is an important determinant of operative outcome. However, even the most experienced team will not be familiar with all potential variability that could be encountered during a surgical procedure. Robotic surgery adds further complexity through advanced technology, additional equipment, intricate process steps, etc. One method that is crucial to understanding a robotic procedure is surgical observation, which can be used to identify the process flow and involved objects. Another method is task excursion analysis, a proactive approach to understanding system variability and key factors that may affect system performance and patient safety. Finally, a method must be used to efficiently present the gathered information to surgical teams. As rapidly evolving technology is introduced into health care systems, the adoption of these types of methods is necessary to ensure patient safety. This paper describes the proposed methodology for analyzing robotic surgery variability and provides some example data.