The Application of Eye-Tracking Technology in Perioperative Management and Education

The Application of Eye-Tracking Technology in Perioperative Management and Education: a Prospective Observational Study

The goal of this observational study is to explore the value of eye-tracking technology in perioperative management and teaching. The study aims to understand how eye-tracking can help analyze the attention distribution of clinicians during perioperative procedures and optimize workflows for improved safety and teaching outcomes.

The main questions it seeks to answer are:

How does eye-tracking technology reveal the focus distribution patterns of experienced and novice clinicians in perioperative scenarios? Can visualizing expert clinicians' eye movement patterns improve the learning outcomes and operational skills of medical students?

Participants include anesthesiologists and medical students involved in perioperative management training. Eye-tracking data, such as fixation duration, fixation count, and heatmaps, will be collected during surgical and training scenarios. The study will analyze correlations between attention distribution and operational performance. This research will provide insights into optimizing perioperative safety and revolutionizing medical education using objective attention data.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Medical Education; Eye-tracking Technology; Perioperative Management; Attention Distribution

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Estimated): 300

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Tingting Wang, PhD; Phone Number: +86 13606812800; Email: wtingting@zju.edu.cn

Study Locations

• China
  • Zhejiang
    • Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
      • Recruiting
      • 2nd Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, China

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Anesthesiologists, including senior physicians and junior doctors and medical students undergoing perioperative management training.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Anesthesiologists, including senior physicians and junior doctors.
• Medical students undergoing perioperative management training.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Individuals with ophthalmological conditions that affect eye movement function.
• Participants who fail to complete the full experimental protocol.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Identify the "hotspots" where anesthesiologists focus their attention within different areas of the anesthesia machines.	Every anesthesiologist will record data from three cases. Data collection will commence as the general anesthesia procedure begins when the patient moves onto the surgical table and will complete when the patient reaches the states of sedation and unconsciousness in preparation for the operation. This period, during which the anesthesiologist plays a leading role, typically lasts less than 10 minutes. No data will be recorded once the surgical operation begins. The Tobii eye-tracker will generate a diverse dataset, encompassing eye trajectory, fixation (a gaze resting on a spot for more than 150 ms), saccades (rapid eye movements between two distinct points), and pupil size. This comprehensive dataset enables us to identify the "hotspots" where anesthesiologists focus their attention within different areas of the anesthesia machines.	1 year

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
The percentage of time anesthesiologists' eyes attention.	Moreover, we will calculate the percentage of time anesthesiologists' eyes spend on team members. We will also quantify the duration of eye contact and communication content between the anesthesiologist and each team member.	1 year
Attention of the clinician	Finally, we will examine the correlation between these behavioral measures (e.g., fixation on hotspots, percentage of time focused on team members, communication episodes) and the duration of the anesthesia procedure.	1 year

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): December 1, 2024
• Primary Completion (Estimated): November 1, 2025
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 1, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 22, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 5, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): March 25, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 25, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 5, 2025
• Last Verified: December 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: 2024-1282

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No