Machine Learning in the OR: A Collaborative Environment for Surgical Interventions in Visceral Medicine

Modern surgical methods are becoming increasingly sophisticated and the number of technical devices that are used during these interventions is increasing. However, the surgical operating room (OR) remains a mere conglomerate of unconnected medical devices. The increase in the complexity of device functionality, in addition to the demands of surgery, pushes human mental capacity to its limit. Hence, an "intelligent" collaborative support system would be more than welcome. We envision a "human-like" intelligent system, which could support the surgical team as a situation-aware consultant. This so-called "active collaborative support system" (ACSS) is based on four main pillars: real-time data inflow, a comprehensive knowledge-base, access to the Internet of Things (surgical devices), and an understanding of human language through natural language processing. Recent advances in the area of AI are bringing this ambitious goal within reach, but there is still a considerable amount of work to be done, including the establishment of a new way of thinking in the collaboration between surgeons and computer scientists/engineers, and possibly one day with intelligent machines-provided that AI systems can be sufficiently trusted.