A Toronto surgeon who is working to adapt black box aviation technology to track surgeries and improve patient outcomes says preliminary results are promising. In Dr. Teodor Grantcharov's operating room, "the whole room is wired." Cameras and microphones capture movement and conversation, and patient data, such as heart rate and blood pressure, is logged automatically by a data recorder similar to black boxes used on airplanes to record flight data. The surgery box, which is actually blue, is poised to change medical culture and practice, said Grantcharov, a minimally-invasive surgeon at St.
Michael's Hospital and professor at the University of Toronto. Once surgeons finish their medical training and begin practising independently, "nobody watches us, nobody coaches us and nobody provides feedback," he said. This lack of feedback, as well as the pressure for surgeons to appear as though…
