The value of collision feedback in robotic surgical skills training

Collision feedback about instrument and environment interaction is often lacking in robotic surgery training devices. The PoLaRS virtual reality simulator is a newly developed desk trainer that overcomes drawbacks of existing robot trainers for advanced laparoscopy. This study aimed to assess the effect of haptic and visual feedback during...

What is the effect of reducing the air change rate on the ventilation effectiveness in ultra-clean operating rooms?

Background<br/>The operating room (OR) department is one of the most energy-intensive departments of a hospital. The majority of ORs in the Netherlands have an air-handling installation with an ultra-clean ventilation system. However, not all surgeries require an ultra-clean OR.<br/><br/>Aim<br/>To determine the effect of reducing the air change...

Air quality in the periphery of operating rooms during surgery

Ultra-clean ventilation systems are used in the operating room (OR) to reduce the quantity of airborne bacteria in the ultra-clean area, and reduce the incidence of surgical site infections (SSIs). When the number of colony-forming units (CFUs) in the ultra-clean (protected) area is too high, this is considered a risk factor for SSIs.

Capital and operational expenditures of different operating room air-handling installations with conventional or ultra-clean air supply systems

When making a decision on the operating room air handling installation and type of air supply system, it is relevant to know the expenditures of the different air handling installations and air supply systems. The aim of this study was to determine the capital and operational expenditures of air handling installations equipped with an ultra...

Automatic Camera Pose Estimation by Key-Point Matching of Reference Objects

In this paper, we aim to design an automatic camera pose estimation pipeline for clinical spaces such as catheterization laboratories. Our proposed pipeline exploits Scaled-YOLOv4 to detect fixed objects. We adopt the self-supervised key-point detector SuperPoint in combination with SuperGlue, a keypoint matching technique based on graph neural...

Object Detection and Person Tracking in CathLab with Automatically Calibrated Cameras

Workflow analysis is a young research field that has been gaining traction in recent years. Work in this field aims to improve the efficiency and safety in operating rooms by analysing surgical processes and providing feedback or support, where observations are made and evaluated by algorithms rather than human experts. For our study, we mount...

Corrigendum to ‘Operating room ventilation systems Recovery Degree, Cleanliness Recovery Rate and Air Change Effectiveness in an ultra-clean area’: [J Hosp Infect 122 (2022) 115-125, (S019567012100459X), (10.1016/j.jhin.2021.12.018)]

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Surgical waste reprocessing: Injection molding using recycled blue wrapping paper from the operating room

Introduction<br/>Hospitals in the Netherlands generate approximately 1.3 million kg of waste from the polypropylene (PP) wrapping paper (WP) used to wrap surgical instruments each year. The aim of this study was to develop a method to recycle WP waste into new medical devices.<br/><br/>Methods<br/>WP was recovered from Maasstad Hospital,...

Validation of the portable virtual reality training system for robotic surgery (PoLaRS): a randomized controlled trial

Background: As global use of surgical robotic systems is steadily increasing, surgical simulation can be an excellent way for robotic surgeons to acquire and retain their skills in a safe environment. To address the need for training in less wealthy parts of the world, an affordable surgical robot simulator (PoLaRS) was designed. Methods: The...

Operating room ventilation systems: recovery degree, cleanliness recovery rate and air change effectiveness in an ultra-clean area

Background: Entrainment test methods are described in most European standards and guidelines to determine the protected area for ultra-clean ventilation (UCV) systems. New UCV systems, such as temperature-controlled airflow (TcAF) and controlled dilution ventilation (cDV) systems, claim the whole operating room (OR) to be ultra-clean. However,...

The effective dose due to scattered radiation at patients during primary osteosynthesis; a multicenter prospective observational study

Objectives: During osteosynthesis of a fracture patients are exposed to the primary radiation of an X-ray image and scattered (secondary) radiation. The primary objective was to measure the amount of scattered radiation at the thyroid, breast tissue, and gonads of patients undergoing primary osteosynthesis of acute fractures. The secondary...

Delicate balance: Adaptive support to improve patient safety

‘It is time to prepare the next patient’ real-time prediction of procedure duration in laparoscopic cholecystectomies

Operating Room (OR) scheduling is crucial to allow efficient use of ORs. Currently, the predicted durations of surgical procedures are unreliable and the OR schedulers have to follow the progress of the procedures in order to update the daily planning accordingly. The OR schedulers often acquire the needed information through verbal...