Association between objective performance indicators and patient outcomes in robotic surgery: a systematic review

Area of Science:

• Robotics in Medicine
• Surgical Quality Assessment

Background:

• Robotic surgery systems automatically collect objective performance indicators (OPIs).
• OPIs capture surgeon console gestures and patient cart activity.
• The clinical relevance of OPIs in robotic surgery requires systematic evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review the association between OPIs and clinical outcomes in robotic surgery.
• To assess the utility of OPIs in predicting surgical outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Systematic review of nine studies evaluating OPIs in robotic surgery.
• Analysis of associations between OPIs and intra-operative and post-operative outcomes.
• Evaluation of predictive models incorporating OPIs versus clinical variables alone.

Main Results:

• OPIs demonstrated associations with estimated blood loss, operative time, hospital stay, continence recovery, quality of life, and surgical margins.
• Predictive models combining OPIs with patient/disease characteristics showed improved outcome prediction.
• OPIs provide meaningful data for surgical quality and patient outcomes.

Conclusions:

• OPIs are valuable indicators of surgical quality and patient outcomes in robotic surgery.
• Further multicenter research is needed to validate OPIs for training, benchmarking, and quality assessment.
• OPIs have the potential to enhance surgical performance evaluation and patient care.