Patient Monitoring in Anesthesia with a Head-Mounted Display: Simulator Studies and a Clinical Trial

Anesthesiologists in the operating room vigilantly monitor their patient's vital signs during surgical procedures. The vital signs are displayed on a monitor that may be located in an awkward position and out of view of the anesthesiologist (who may be busy performing procedures on the patient). A head-mounted display (HMD) can help anesthesiologists monitor the patient's vital signs no matter where they are, or where they are looking, in the operating room. HMDs have been tested in simulated and real operating rooms, but no study has investigated whether the worsened inattentional blindness phenomenon found with head-up displays in aviation would also affect HMDs in anesthesia. Experiment 1 shows that the HMD did not worsen participants' ability to report unexpected events, but it did let them look towards the simulated patient for longer. Experiment 2 shows that participants using the HMD are slower to detect a change in a waveform and quicker to detect a change in numbers when working with a simulated patient. Experiment 3, a clinical trial, replicated the finding that the HMD lets participants look towards the patient for more time. We assess the prospects for HMDs in clinical contexts.