OR Companion

Complex operations require thorough preparation. They often involve numerous people, a wide range of equipment, and, increasingly, robotic assistance systems. Despite the many years of experience of surgical teams, technical errors can occur in such an environment.

To make operations as safe as possible, scientists at the Fraunhofer IPA's Clinical Health Technologies department are developing the OR Companion. This tool supports the planning, preparation, and execution of medical procedures. Optimized processes reduce the workload on hospital staff and make better use of scarce resources. This means that more patients can be helped and costs can be saved.

The OR Companion provides surgical staff with a virtual planning environment for operating rooms. This represents a digital twin of the actual operating room and offers the possibility to plan surgical procedures and test different setups. Using state-of-the-art scanning technology, a complete, three-dimensional image of the real operating room and its equipment is captured and used to create the digital twin. The procedure can then be planned in the virtual environment. The resulting instructions are transmitted to the AR equipment and made visible in the real space.

During surgery, the augmented reality environment provides doctors and nursing staff with the necessary information and planning data. The surgical team is guided through the setup and can see what the next planned steps of the operation are and what the equipment and robotic systems will do.

With the help of the technology developed by Team ORC, medical procedures, especially those with robotic assistance, can be performed even faster and made even safer.