Clinical Implementation of a Head-Mounted Display of Patient Vital Signs

Head-mounted displays (HMDs) can superimpose a patient´s vital signs over the anesthesiologist´s field of view in the operating room. Prior simulator-based studies have found that anesthesiologists wearing an HMD spend more time looking towards the patient and less time looking towards the monitors compared to standard monitoring. We review potential approaches for interfacing an HMD with clinical monitoring equipment at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and describe the technical solution we implemented. Furthermore, we implemented a method of recording video data in the operating room without interfering with normal clinical practice. Finally, we present analyses of two clinical scenarios where HMDs might be particularly useful.