Medical procedures are an essential part of healthcare delivery, and the acquisition of procedural skills is a critical component of medical education. Unfortunately, procedural skill is not evenly distributed among medical providers. Skills may vary within departments or institutions, and across geographic regions, depending on the provider's training and ongoing experience. We present a mixed reality real-time communication system to increase access to procedural skill training and to improve remote emergency assistance. Our system allows a remote expert to guide a local operator through a medical procedure. RGBD cameras capture a volumetric view of the local scene including the patient, the operator, and the medical equipment. The volumetric capture is augmented onto the remote expert's view to allow the expert to spatially guide the local operator using visual and verbal instructions. We evaluated our mixed reality communication system in a study in which experts teach the ultrasound-guided placement of a central venous catheter (CVC) to students in a simulation setting. The study compares state-of-the-art video communication against our system. The results indicate that our system enhances and offers new possibilities for visual communication compared to video teleconference-based training.

翻译：医疗操作是医疗服务的重要组成部分，而操作技能的掌握是医学教育的关键环节。然而，医疗操作技能在医务人员中并非均匀分布。不同科室、机构乃至地理区域的技能水平可能存在差异，这取决于从业者的培训经历和持续实践经验。本文提出一种混合现实实时通信系统，旨在扩大操作技能培训的可及性并提升远程紧急援助能力。该系统允许远程专家指导本地操作者完成医疗操作。通过RGBD摄像头捕捉包含患者、操作者及医疗设备的本地场景容积视图，将三维容积数据叠加至远程专家视野中，使专家能够通过视觉与语音指令对本地操作者进行空间引导。我们通过一项研究评估了该混合现实通信系统：在模拟环境下，专家使用该系统向学生传授超声引导下中心静脉导管（CVC）置入技术。研究将现有顶尖的视频通信方式与我们的系统进行了对比。结果表明，相较于基于视频会议的培训模式，本系统增强了视觉通信能力并开辟了新的可能性。