THE CLIENT: Long Island Jewish Hospital Department of Urology

The Objective

The director of Laparoscopic surgery was concerned about the validity of commonly used subjective measures of surgical skill. EyeTracking, Inc’s patented Index of Cognitive Activity (ICA) was proposed as an objective measure that might provide a more reliable assessment of surgeons.

The Sample

The participants in this study were surgeons of differing levels of expertise at the Long Island Jewish Hospital.

The Methods

Eye data was collected as participants completed live and simulated laparoscopic procedures. Linear discriminate analysis and neural network analysis were used to classify the surgeons as expert or nonexpert based solely on eye tracking data.

The Results

ICA data accurately identified the experience level of surgeons in over 90% of cases. These groundbreaking results suggest that surgical performance can be assessed in an objective and reliable way using eye tracking technology. Our ongoing research in this area continues to develop the ICA as an important tool in the training and credentialing of surgeons.