SAFER C-SECTIONS
Students Innovate Wireless System for Rural Hospitals

In small rural hospitals, emergency Cesarean sections present challenges not faced at large urban medical centers. An extra operating room is not prepped and on standby for C-sections, and the on-call surgical team must be summoned, sometimes from miles away.

When you have only 30 minutes from decision to incision, communication is critical, says Ken Funk, a professor in the School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering, who has been improving the interactions between machines and humans for more than 30 years.

Funk and a team of graduate students teamed up with doctors at Peace Harbor Hospital in Florence, Ore. to create the C- Section Facilitator, a mobile, wireless communication and information system designed to help rural hospitals quickly assemble the surgical team and prepare the patient and operating room.

The new system is good news in the U.S. where, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, almost 30 percent of babies were delivered by C-section in 2004, many performed at small or rural hospitals.

The venture, which started in a human-machines system engineering course taught by Funk, blossomed into a full-scale research and development project as the students saw the necessity of their research.

At Peace Harbor, with only two operating rooms, one is not always set up for C-sections. Members of the prep and surgical teams must be summoned, the room readied, and the patient prepped – all within 30 minutes to minimize risks to mother and baby.

The narrow window of time, in combination with system vulnerabilities and intrinsic human fallibilities, increases the risk of an adverse outcome, says Funk, who is part of the Information Usability Research Cluster.

“The goal is to enhance human performance in complex, high risk situations,” he says. “We saw this as an opportunity to develop an information and communications system using a very human-centered, rather than technology-centered, approach.”

Their design includes software coupled with a network of wireless devices – smart phones, tablet PCs, and a large display screen – that track the progress of each procedure needing completion before a C-section can be performed. All devices are automatically updated as steps are completed, informing every member of the preparation and surgical teams of the status of the operating room, mother and baby, and team members themselves.

“A few minutes of delay can be critical,” Funk says. The C-Section Facilitator automatically calls every member concurrently, reducing the amount of time the ward clerk and other members must spend assembling the team.

The C-Section Facilitator is currently in the prototype stage, requiring additional testing and funding before it can be integrated at Peace Harbor and commercially developed.

Photo: Clockwise, from left: OSU professor Ken Funk, Dr. James Bauer, an obstetrician/gynecologist with Peace Harbor Hospital, and OSU graduate students Lin-hui Huang, Robin Feuerbacher, and Melissa Hastings demonstrate their C-Section Facilitator prototype in the labor and delivery operating room of Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis.