Innovative technology to improve communication in the Operating Room in COVID-19 era

新冠肺炎疫情在许多方面颠覆了医学界。这种病毒很容易传播，可能会出现在没有症状的人身上，而这些人又会在不知不觉中传播它。面对这些新的挑战，医护人员保护自己的主要方式是穿上个人防护装备(PPE)。这可能包括不同类型的口罩，也称为呼吸器。 来自军队、警察和建筑领域的大量报告强调，戴着口罩时，沟通受到严重损害。一个人的声音变得低沉、低沉和模糊。无论是军事行动还是手术室，无法沟通都可能危及某人的生命。自疫情开始以来，医护人员一直在与戴着呼吸器的这种沟通障碍作斗争。然而，目前还不存在解决这一紧迫问题的办法。 在这种危险的情况下，我们的团队试图找到一种解决方案，在医院佩戴呼吸器的情况下改善沟通。我们发现了一种前景看好的加拿大技术，目前正用于工业和军事领域。这种入耳式设备的工作原理是在耳道内拾取人自己的声音，通过创新的算法，它可以非常清晰地重建和传输人的声音。我们假设，这项技术可以在手术期间被所有团队成员佩戴，尽管它从未在医疗环境中进行过试验。该设备将需要通过修改其算法和提供免提操作来适应手术室的独特要求。 使用一系列经过验证的听力测试，我们将量化在佩戴不同呼吸器时使用和不使用这项新技术时语音的可理解性。然后，我们将与制造这些设备的加拿大公司EERS合作，创造出适用于医疗环境的设备的修改版本。最后，医生将在真正的手术中测试经过调整的设备。我们相信，这项技术将带来一个对患者和医护人员都更安全的手术室。

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the medical world upside down in many ways. This virus spreads easily and can be present in people without symptoms, who in turn can spread it unknowingly. Faced with these new challenges, the main way in which healthcare workers can protect themselves is by wearing personal protective equipment (PPE). This can include different types of masks, also called respirators. Numerous reports from the military, police and construction fields have highlighted that communication is severely impaired while wearing respirators. A person's voice becomes low, muffled and unclear. Whether it's a military operation or the operating room, the inability to communicate can endanger someone's life. Since the pandemic began, healthcare workers have struggled with this impaired communication while wearing respirators. However, no solution currently exists to address this urgent issue. With this dangerous situation at hand, our team sought to find a solution to improve communication while wearing respirators in the hospital. We identified a promising Canadian technology, currently used in the industrial and military setting. This in-ear device works by picking up a person's own voice within the ear canal, and through an innovative algorithm, it reconstructs and transmits the human voice extremely clearly. We hypothesize that this technology could be worn by all team members during surgery, although it has never been trialed in a medical setting. The device will need to be adapted to the unique requirements of the operating room, by modifying its algorithm and providing hands-free operation. Using a series of validated audiologic tests, we will quantify how comprehensible speech is while wearing different respirators with and without this new technology. We will then work with EERS, the Canadian company making these devices, to create a modified version of their device, applicable to the medical setting. Finally, physicians will test the adapted device during real surgery. We believe that this technology will result in an operating room that is safer, both for the patient and for the healthcare worker.