Usability Assessment: The Foundation for Developing Surgical Video Review Systems

Area of Science:

• Medical Informatics
• Surgical Education
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Surgical video review enhances surgical performance but faces implementation barriers.
• Platform usability is critical for the adoption of video capture systems in surgery.
• Existing local network video capture (LNVC) systems require usability evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the usability of an existing LNVC platform in a surgical department.
• To identify usability challenges hindering the adoption of LNVC systems.
• To provide a benchmark for LNVC platform usability using a standardized scale.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the System Usability Scale (SUS), a standardized measurement tool.
• Administered the SUS survey online to surgical residents and faculty.
• Calculated SUS scores for distinct user groups within the department.

Main Results:

• The overall median SUS score for the LNVC platform was low (43), below the average (68).
• Routine video users reported the lowest median usability score (36).
• Demonstrated that the LNVC system has among the lowest usability scores in the department.

Conclusions:

• The current LNVC platform exhibits significant usability issues.
• Poor usability negatively impacts the potential of surgical video for performance improvement.
• Recommendations for improving LNVC platform design and implementation are needed.