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

COVID-19大流行在许多方面颠覆了医学界。这种病毒很容易传播，可以存在于没有症状的人身上，而这些人又可以在不知不觉中传播它。面对这些新挑战，医护人员保护自己的主要方式是穿戴个人防护装备（PPE）。这可以包括不同类型的面罩，也称为面罩。 来自军队、警察和建筑领域的许多报告都强调，戴上口罩会严重损害通信。一个人的声音变得低沉，模糊和不清楚。无论是军事行动还是手术室，无法沟通都可能危及生命。自疫情开始以来，医护人员一直在戴着口罩与这种受损的沟通作斗争。然而，目前没有解决这一紧迫问题的办法。 面对这种危险的情况，我们的团队试图找到一种解决方案，以改善在医院佩戴呼吸机时的沟通。我们确定了一项前景广阔的加拿大技术，目前用于工业和军事环境。这款入耳式设备的工作原理是在耳道内拾取人自己的声音，并通过创新的算法重建和传输人类的声音，非常清晰。我们假设这项技术可以在手术过程中被所有团队成员佩戴，尽管它从未在医疗环境中试用过。该设备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学测试，我们将量化佩戴不同的助听器时，使用和不使用这种新技术时，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，创建适用于医疗环境的修改版设备。最后，医生将在真实的手术过程中测试调整后的器械。我们相信，这项技术将使手术室更加安全，无论是对患者还是对医护人员来说。

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.