Towards a Cyber-Physical Systems Based Operating Room of the Future

Modern operating rooms require medical specialists to handle complex surgeries so that effective and yet safe treatment can be delivered. The development of a medical cyber-physical system is a highly multidisciplinary and challenging endeavour. In this paper, an intelligent surgical theatre (aka surgical theatre of the future) architecture was proposed based on Cyber-Physical System (CPS) concepts. The proposed architecture, which comprises of intelligence components, cyber components, cyber-physical interfaces and physical components, is specially designed to facilitate effective data/information exchanges among these components. The proposed architecture also accounts for three various stages of a typical surgical operation (i.e. pre-operation, intra-operation and post operation), which are all essential for the development of a complete CPS-based Operating Room of the Future (ORF). As higher levels of teamwork, communication and coordination can now be achieved with a system based on the proposed architecture, it has the potential to enhance safety, increase efficiency and reduce costs in the ORF.