Situation awareness in medical visualization to support surgical decision making

Motivation -- To design information visualisation that in a decision support system for surgeons that aims to enhance situation awareness and hence improves performance. Research approach -- A prototype of an Intra-operative Visualization System (IVS) was developed, Based on the understanding of surgical workflow (problem solving process). IVS aimed to provide decision support to perform a minimally invasive procedure called Radio Frequency Ablation (RFA), to treat cancerous tumors in liver. Theory of situation awareness which is regarded as the theoretical backbone for improving information visualization in system design was incorporated to design the IVS. An experimental study was conducted with 8 expert intervention radiologist and 8 final year medical students. The study compared the performance of both the groups by using two systems: IVS and the conventional Ultrasound (US) guided intervention to perform RFA. Findings/Design -- The results reveal significant evidence for improved decision-making when using the IVS by both the clinical experts and students. In terms of three performance measures both the groups: (1) needed less intra-operative planning time; (2) illustrated increase in accuracy of hitting the tumor in the centre and (3) fewer errors in hitting the wrong tumor. Take away message -- Medical visualisation in decision support systems that focuses on enhancing situation awareness and supports surgical workflow can improve surgical decision making and hence the task performance.