Video-based Assessments to Improve Surgical Skill for Minimally Invasive Plate Osteosynthesis

Challenges

Surgery is a team sport, but unlike athletes, experienced surgeons do not necessarily gain additional competence overtime.¹ A methodology and approach was needed to enable surgeons to utilize videos before and after surgery, in the same way athletes leverage video for performance improvement before, during and after the game.

• Surgeons lack the opportunity for video-based feedback on skills, critical for improvement.
• Without this specific feedback, skills improvement is difficult to obtain.
• An approach and supporting technology were needed to conduct Video Based Assessments of surgical skills, and based on assessment results, develop a deliberate practice approach to enable skill improvement.

Solution

Performance skills of a surgeon for a specific surgical technique range from 1 (novice) to 5 (expert). Mentoring can bring the surgeon to level 3. Simple experience rarely allows achievement of level 5, in contrast to deliberate practice, in which performance skills are improved by setting learning goals based on feedback about the trainee’s previous performance.² Using a modified version of OSATS that focused on both basic surgical skills which OSATS typically evaluates and specific surgical skills that are integral to MIPO procedures, deliberate practice resulted in a significant increase in technical proficiency for the surgeons evaluated.

How We Helped

• Leveraged Caresyntax technology to create a High-Fidelity Surgical Record™ for each case, which included surgical video and case context.
• Enabled post-operative review and analysis of surgical videos, along with MIPO OSATS assessments of surgical skill for each procedure by respective surgeon.
• Based on the assessments, a deliberate practice plan was implemented for each surgeon.
• The result was a significant increase in technical proficiency for the surgeons evaluated.