Use of a See-Through Head-Worn Display of Patient Monitoring Data to Enhance Anesthesiologists' Response to Abnormal Clinical Events

One obstacle to safety in the operating room is anesthesiologist distraction -having to shift attention back and forth from the patient to vital sign monitor while performing either routine or emergency procedures. The purpose of this study was to measure the decrease in anesthesiologist distraction made possible by using a head-mounted, see-through personal display (HMD) using retinal scanning technology. With the head-up display, they were able to focus their attention exclusively on the patient and the task at hand. The Nomad reduced the number of times the anesthesiologist had to shift their attention by a more than a third (17 times versus 58 times). This allowed them to spend more time focused on the patient. 1. Background/Problem Anesthesia researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine conducted a series of tests evaluating the NomadTM Personal Display (Microvision, Inc., Bothell, WA), as a situational awareness tool for the anesthesiologist. The Nomad is an augmented vision personal head-mounted display system (HMD) that provides anesthesiologists with useful clinical information without requiring them to shift attention away from the patient. One of the biggest obstacles to safety in the operating room is anesthesiologist distraction -having to shift attention back and forth from the patient to vital sign monitors, while performing either routine or emergency procedures. The purpose of this study was to measure the decrease in anesthesiologist distraction made possible by using a head-mounted, seethrough personal display (HMD) using retinal scanning technology. 2. Purpose of the Study The hypothesis presented by researchers at the U of W is that the Anesthesiologist’s attention is often split between the patient and the monitoring equipment. This is especially a problem in dealing with extremely critical in life threatening situations or with critically ill patients. It is anticipated that having a see-through display will allow them to keep their focus on the patient. Figure 1Anesthesiologist views vital signs using Nomad display