Virtual Process Simulation in Health Care: Potentials and Challenges

The operating room is a site of high complexity, high risk and an intensive use of resources. Analysis and modification of processes are challenging and difficult to implement in practice. The planning software EMA WorkDesigner supports digital production planning and prospective ergonomics as well as productivity assessment by providing an efficient and accurate approach to 3D-human-simulation of manual and semi-automatic and human robot tasks. Main objective of the paper is the transfer of the application of EMA WorkDesigner in healthcare settings. For this purpose, we simulated a preoperative process in a 3D operating room and derived characteristic lines for ergonomics and cycle times for different human models. The results of the process simulation show that most of the workers have a higher risk of musculoskeletal overload according to the Ergonomic Assessment Worksheet evaluation method; on average, women have worse individual evaluation scores than men. There is no difference for the cycle times depending on the various human models. The assessed operating-room nurses have to cover a distance of 1222.5 m in one shift, for this process sequence alone. The EMA WorkDesigner has an enormous potential for use in healthcare simulation. A strength lies in the simple, quick and intuitive creation of working processes with object interaction by using the EMA WorkDesigner tasks library. On the other hand, there is a need for improvement in the creation of processes that require direct interaction with people, e.g. put patients from bed to divan bed. These require more effort. In addition a combination of EMA WorkDesigner with virtual reality methods would increase the spatial perception and interaction in groups.