CIMIT/TATRC Symposium on Developing a Plug-and-Play Open Networking Standard for the Operating Room of the Future

Abstract : Medicine - and specifically, the operating room environment - has not had the benefit of standardized control and communication systems. As a result, many self-evident improvements - such as seamless data communication, medical device integration, remote device actuation, and distributed closed-loop control systems - have been precluded, and safety and economic benefits have not been realized. Funding was sought for a symposium to begin the process of defining technical and clinical requirements for a bus-independent Plug-and-Play (PnP) standardization framework for medical devices in the Operating Room of the Future (ORF). To effectively define these requirements and set an agenda for standards development required convening a group of medical device producers, clinical users, facility biomedical engineers, governmental regulators (including the FDA), and standards-writing experts. The two-day symposium was organized to 1) educate the participants in relevant technology, the regulatory picture, and clinical practice; 2) provide a forum for discovery of important issues and barriers to implementing PnP in the ORF; and 3) organize participants' contributions to refine the concepts, establish a consensus to move forward, and generate material to serve as the foundation for the proposed ORF PnP standard.