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Developing strategies for implementation and use of the Operating Room Black Box

Award Number: R01HS029874
ORGANIZATION: AGENCY FOR HEALTH CARE RESEARCH AND QUALITY
OPDIV: AHRQ
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/01/2024
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 06/30/2028

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Developing strategies for implementation and use of the Operating Room Black Box - Project Summary It is estimated that fixing problems related to preventable errors costs the U.S. healthcare system $400 billion annually. In the field of surgery, the most basic element of quality care begins in the operating room (OR), and >50% of preventable errors that lead to patient harm happen there. The suboptimal performance of OR teams often lead to adverse events such as wrong site surgery, foreign object retention, and delays that greatly increase morbidity, mortality, and costs. Though using a surgical safety checklist can prevent errors and reduce patient harm, measurement of improve critical intraoperative processes has traditionally required putting observers inside the OR to record and analyze team performance. Since this process is labor-intensive and costly, it has been limited to a few large academic centers conducting funded research in quality improvement. The operating room Black Box® (ORBB) is an innovative technological and analytical platform, that synchronously captures the performance of the operating surgeon and the OR team while simultaneously recording patients’ vitals and postoperative outcomes. The ORBB uses machine learning to analyze performance and outcomes, making the program scalable and unlocking the potential for widespread monitoring and improvement of intraoperative team performance. However, large-scale adoption of the ORBB is limited by a lack of training programs that incorporate the data into an actionable form and by the absence of high-quality data on how to implement the ORBB in diverse hospitals. We hypothesize that addressing these barriers will lead to significant improvement in outcomes for surgical patients and propose three specific aims to test these hypotheses. In aim 1, a high fidelity immersive multi-player virtual simulator will be developed for training the OR teams in performing the surgical safety checklist. In aim 2, the validity and effectiveness of the virtual simulator in improving the quality of safety will be studied using the ORBB data. In aim 3, a study of ORBB implementation will be conducted to identify barriers and facilitators to adoption of the ORBB across the US healthcare system.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2026 ( Subtotal = $400,000 )
2026	2026	THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER	5323 HARRY HINES BLVD	DALLAS	TX	75390	DALLAS	USA	Research on Healthcare Costs, Quality and Outcomes	000	3	4/27/2026	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$400,000
														Subtotal = $400,000

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $400,000 )
2025	2025	THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER	5323 HARRY HINES BLVD	DALLAS	TX	75390	DALLAS	USA	Research on Healthcare Costs, Quality and Outcomes	000	2	6/26/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$400,000
														Subtotal = $400,000

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $399,999 )
2024	2024	THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER	5323 HARRY HINES BLVD	DALLAS	TX	75390	DALLAS	USA	Research on Healthcare Costs, Quality and Outcomes	000	1	8/22/2024	NEW	$399,999
														Subtotal = $399,999

Grand Total All Awards = $1,199,999

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Developing strategies for implementation and use of the Operating Room Black Box

Award Number: R01HS029874

ORGANIZATION: AGENCY FOR HEALTH CARE RESEARCH AND QUALITY

OPDIV: AHRQ

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/01/2024

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 06/30/2028

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