Plug-and-play in the operating room of the future.

May/June 2005 How safe would a car be if key components, such as the brakes and cruise control, didn’t work together? Can you imagine flying in an airplane that wouldn’t provide a warning if the landing gear didn’t deploy? Would you buy a new computer that would not allow you to upgrade the mouse, keyboard, or other peripheral components? Would your new “USB memory stick” be useful if it only worked with one brand of computer? The kinds of interoperable plug-and-play control and communication systems that we take for granted in automobiles and consumer electronics are lacking in operating rooms (OR) today. Although intraoperative patient safety has improved significantly, the OR is still a complex and potentially hazardous environment where clinicians depend on teamwork and a patchwork of systems to mitigate hazards instead of using automated safety systems. Surprisingly, smart alarms and automated decision support tools are still absent from the clinical environment. Clinical engineers and clinicians have proposed innovative technical solutions to mitigate clinical hazards, but they cannot affordably implement novel solutions when real-time medical device data acquisition or control is required. Partly as a result of the lack of medical device interoperability, many selfevident improvements have been precluded, and safety Plug-and-Play in the Operating Room of the Future