Laparoscopic Surgery Training System (LASTS) Navy SBIR FY2010.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2010.1 Topic No.: N101-094 Topic Title: Laparoscopic Surgery Training System (LASTS) Proposal No.: N101-094-0584 Firm: Charles River Analytics Inc. 625 Mount Auburn Street Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138-4555 Contact: Peter Weyhrauch Phone: (617) 491-3474 Web Site: www.cra.com Abstract: What is needed is a more complete and validated set of standards for training and assessing Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS). The problem is determining what actually constitutes the necessary set of surgical skills, and how to measure the skills objectively. Additionally, such metrics must be validated in terms of objectivity, cost, and learning transfer to the operating room. Furthermore, little is known about the durability of surgical skills, including how skills decay and how to best train and retrain skills to reduce such decay. What is needed is a conceptual model and objective measures that reliably assess: surgical skill acquisition during training; skill decay when skills are unused; and skill reacquisition during retraining or refresher courses. To achieve these objectives, we propose to design and demonstrate the feasibility of an automated Laparoscopic Surgery Training System (LASTS) for learning and refreshing MIS/LS skills in simulation. LASTS uses models of skill acquisition, decay, and assessment, as well as individual training models to maximize training effectiveness and minimize skill attrition. Benefits: We expect the Laparoscopic Surgery Training System (LASTS), as well as the underlying technology, to have benefits for a number of military and civilian medical facilities, for either education of students or refreshing the skills of staff surgeons. The full-scope LASTS system will allow students and doctors to both learn and refresh their skills in laparoscopic surgery, based on training strategies that prevent decay of highly perishable skills. The benefit of the LASTS models is that they can be used to develop and provide objective metrics and measurement techniques to validate simulated training systems, and ultimately develop better training strategies. Finally, once these metrics are validated, they can be used not only to train, but to assess students, as a further step beyond the current assessment systems. The ultimate beneficiaries of this program are doctors and patients. Doctors will have more reliable, efficient, targeted, and less costly training, leading to better overall surgical proficiency. From this, patients will have fewer complications, better results, and higher quality of care. Return