The Methodological Approach to Process Analysis for Robotic Surgical Procedures: The Experience of SAFROS and I-SUR Projects

This work presents two methodological approaches followed for two distinct contexts of surgical robotics. The IRIS Unit of Fondazione Centro San Raffaele (Milano, Italy) is involved in two research projects related to robotic surgery, dealing with different purposes, procedures and technologies, thus requiring different approaches to knowledge formalization and process analysis. The first project, SAFROS – Patient Safety in Robotic Surgery, aims to improve patient safety for robotic surgery and a systemic approach has been adopted, in order to take into account several aspects related to the surgical procedure, from the device to the process itself and the whole environmental organization. The second project, I-SUR – Intelligent Surgical Robotics, aims at automatizing three basic surgical gestures with specific procedural constraints and targets. A goal-based approach has been chosen to analyze the process, extrapolate the operational workflow and setting the requirements for the underlying technological system. Both in SAFROS and I-SUR, safety for the patient and acceptability for the surgeons, considered as “final users” of such innovations, have taken a key role for the approach to process improvement.