Expert Evaluation of a Spoken Dialogue System in a Clinical Operating Room

Expert Evaluation of a Spoken Dialogue System in a Clinical Operating Room Juliana Miehle1, Nadine Gerstenlauer1, Daniel Ostler2, Hubertus Feußner2, Wolfgang Minker1, Stefan Ultes3 1Institute of Communications Engineering, Ulm University, Albert-Einstein-Allee 43, 89081 Ulm, Germany 2Minimally-invasive Interdisciplinary Therapeutical Intervention, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technical University of Munich, Trogerstr. 26, 81675 M¨unchen, Germany 3Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK juliana.miehle@uni-ulm.de, nadine.gerstenlauer@uni-ulm.de, daniel.ostler@tum.de, hubertus.feussner@tum.de, wolfgang.minker@uni-ulm.de, su259@cam.ac.uk Abstract With the emergence of new technologies, the surgical working environment becomes increasingly complex and comprises many medical devices which have to be monitored and controlled. With the aim of improving productivity and reducing the workload for the operating staff, we have developed an Intelligent Digital Assistant for Clinical Operating Rooms (IDACO) which allows the surgeon to control the operating room using natural spoken language. As speech is the modality used by the surgeon to communicate with their staff, using it to control the technical devices does not pose an additional mental burden. Therefore, we claim that the surgical environment presents a potential field of application for Spoken Dialogue Systems. In this work, we present the design and implementation of IDACO as well as the evaluation in an experimental set-up by specialists in the field of minimally invasive surgery. Our expert evaluation yields promis- ing results and allows to conclude that clinical operating rooms are indeed an expedient area of application for Spoken Dialogue Systems. Keywords: Intelligent Assistance, Natural Spoken Language, Surgical Environment 1. Introduction Finding new technological solutions in order to enhance the work in clinical operating rooms has been in the focus of research for many years. However, with the emergence of new technologies, the surgical working environment com- prises nowadays many medical devices which have to be monitored and controlled and thus becomes increasingly complex. Therefore, new strategies are needed to keep the working environment manageable and to reduce the work- load for the surgical team, thus allowing them to fully focus on the actual surgical procedure. In this context, the Oper- ating Room of the Future is a keyword often used (Feußner, 2003). It describes the application of new technologies such as computer-enhanced systems to create an intelligent oper- ating room (OR) that facilitates work and reduces the staff needed during a surgical intervention (Pransky, 2001). This reduces personnel cost and promises to lessen the rate of avoidable incidents caused by human error. However, having computer systems that monitor the surgi- cal devices is not sufficient. An intelligent OR also needs an intelligent human-computer interface as the surgeon as well as the whole surgery team must not be disturbed by the usage of complex computer applications and numerous devices. Therefore, the interface has to be designed so as to be simple and intuitive (Feußner et al., 2014). During a procedure, the surgeon needs his hands to operate on the patient and his eyes for being aware of what he is doing. Thus, any graphical and gesture-based systems are not well suited for this purpose. Being hands- …

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