TY - JOUR

T1 - Robotic Systems in Operating Theaters: New Forms of Team–Machine Interaction inHealth Care

T2 - On Challenges for Health Information Systems on Adequately Considering Hybrid Action of Humans and Machines

AU - Steil, Jochen

AU - Finas, Dominique

AU - Beck, Susanne

AU - Manzeschke, Arne

AU - Haux, Reinhold

PY - 2019/6

Y1 - 2019/6

N2 - Background Health information systems have developed rapidly and considerably during the last decades, taking advantage of many new technologies. Robots used in operating theaters represent an exceptional example of this trend. Yet, the more these systems are designed to act autonomously and intelligently, the more complex and ethical questions arise about serious implications of how future hybrid clinical team-machine interactions ought to be envisioned, in situations where actions and their decision-making are continuously shared between humans and machines. Objectives To discuss the many different viewpoints-from surgery, robotics, medical informatics, law, and ethics-that the challenges of novel team-machine interactions raise, together with potential consequences for health information systems, in particular on how to adequately consider what hybrid actions can be specified, and in which sense these do imply a sharing of autonomous decisions between (teams of) humans and machines, with robotic systems in operating theaters as an example. Results Team-machine interaction and hybrid action of humans and intelligent machines, as is now becoming feasible, will lead to fundamental changes in a wide range of applications, not only in the context of robotic systems in surgical operating theaters. Collaboration of surgical teams in operating theaters as well as the roles, competencies, and responsibilities of humans (health care professionals) and machines (robotic systems) need to be reconsidered. Hospital information systems will in future not only have humans as users, but also provide the ground for actions of intelligent machines. Conclusions The expected significant changes in the relationship of humans and machines can only be appropriately analyzed and considered by inter- and multidisciplinary collaboration. Fundamentally new approaches are needed to construct the reasonable concepts surrounding hybrid action that will take into account the ascription of responsibility to the radically different types of human versus nonhuman intelligent agents involved.

AB - Background Health information systems have developed rapidly and considerably during the last decades, taking advantage of many new technologies. Robots used in operating theaters represent an exceptional example of this trend. Yet, the more these systems are designed to act autonomously and intelligently, the more complex and ethical questions arise about serious implications of how future hybrid clinical team-machine interactions ought to be envisioned, in situations where actions and their decision-making are continuously shared between humans and machines. Objectives To discuss the many different viewpoints-from surgery, robotics, medical informatics, law, and ethics-that the challenges of novel team-machine interactions raise, together with potential consequences for health information systems, in particular on how to adequately consider what hybrid actions can be specified, and in which sense these do imply a sharing of autonomous decisions between (teams of) humans and machines, with robotic systems in operating theaters as an example. Results Team-machine interaction and hybrid action of humans and intelligent machines, as is now becoming feasible, will lead to fundamental changes in a wide range of applications, not only in the context of robotic systems in surgical operating theaters. Collaboration of surgical teams in operating theaters as well as the roles, competencies, and responsibilities of humans (health care professionals) and machines (robotic systems) need to be reconsidered. Hospital information systems will in future not only have humans as users, but also provide the ground for actions of intelligent machines. Conclusions The expected significant changes in the relationship of humans and machines can only be appropriately analyzed and considered by inter- and multidisciplinary collaboration. Fundamentally new approaches are needed to construct the reasonable concepts surrounding hybrid action that will take into account the ascription of responsibility to the radically different types of human versus nonhuman intelligent agents involved.

KW - health care

KW - health information systems

KW - hybrid action

KW - operating theater

KW - robots

KW - team-machine interaction

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85069791513&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1055/s-0039-1692465

DO - 10.1055/s-0039-1692465

M3 - Article

C2 - 31342471

AN - SCOPUS:85069791513

VL - 58

SP - E14-E25

JO - Methods of information in medicine

JF - Methods of information in medicine

SN - 0026-1270

IS - 1

ER -