Faulkner Hospital is trying out a system called the “OR Black Box,” which collects data to pinpoint missteps during operations.
The operating room has long functioned in secrecy, a sanctum where a team works in quiet synchrony to cut open and, hopefully, repair an unconscious patient’s body. Those who do the work rarely talk about it with others and often can’t remember exactly what happened, making it hard to assess what went wrong, or what went right, or whether anything could have been done better.
But now an AI-powered technology may put an end to the mystery, by recording what goes on in the OR in the finest detail — every move each person makes, every word uttered, every instrument used, every shift in the patient’s vital signs, more than a half-million data points from each OR over the course of each day.
The technology is called the OR Black Box, although it involves no box, black or otherwise. The name is intended to evoke the “black box” airlines use to track everything that happens in the cockpit.
More than two dozen hospitals in the United States and Canada have installed the system — a set of wide-angle video cameras that stream to sophisticated software — in some of their operating rooms. In mid-November, Brigham & Women’s Faulkner Hospital in Jamaica Plain began piloting the system in two of its 16 operating rooms, to see if it would make sense for wider adoption in the Mass General Brigham hospital group.
For some, the technology is disturbing, an intrusion into a heretofore private space; its data, they fear, could be used against medical professionals in court. For its fans, the OR Black Box is a powerful and essential tool, with the potential to make surgery safer and more efficient.
“It’s providing this treasure trove of data. It’s giving us vast new insights into the quality of procedures and the quality of performance,” said Dr. Jeff Salvon-Harman, vice president of safety at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a Boston-based nonprofit focused on improving outcomes in health care around the world.
By | Boston Globe
Image Credit: Pat Greenhouse / Boston Globe
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