Measuring teamwork for training in healthcare using eye tracking and pose estimation

Area of Science:

• Healthcare education technology
• Medical simulation
• Human-computer interaction

Background:

• Effective teamwork is crucial for patient safety in healthcare.
• Current methods for observing teamwork in simulations are subjective and cognitively demanding.
• Objective, reliable metrics are needed to assess teamwork skills during training.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the use of eye tracking and pose estimation for measuring teamwork in healthcare simulation.
• To assess the feasibility of these technologies in generating objective teamwork metrics.
• To evaluate the potential of these metrics in enhancing teamwork training.

Main Methods:

• An observational study involving 64 third-year medical students in teams of four during a simulated handover.
• Utilized mobile eye tracking to measure gaze and multi-person pose estimation for 3D joint positions.
• Processed data to derive eye contact time and distance to patient metrics.

Main Results:

• Successfully recorded and processed data to generate objective teamwork metrics.
• Average eye contact time was 6.46 seconds; average distance to patient was 1.01 meters.
• Both metrics showed significant variation between teams and roles (p < 0.001), enabling visualization of team interactions.

Conclusions:

• Eye tracking and pose estimation provide objective, continuous, and reliable measures of teamwork in healthcare simulations.
• These technologies have the potential to complement existing methods and support instructors in teamwork training.
• Further research is needed to generalize findings and integrate these tools into standard training protocols.