NMCSD Collaborates with UCSD for ARTEMIS Project

Photo By Petty Officer 2nd Class Jacob L. Greenberg | 201015-N-DA693-1019 SAN DIEGO (Oct. 15, 2020) Thomas Sharkey, a Ph.D. student at University of California San Diego (UCSD) (right), adjusts a virtual reality headset on Matthew Vasquez, a neurosurgeon assigned to Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD), during a simulated damage control craniotomy as part of an Augmented Reality Technology-Enabled Remote Integrative Surgery (ARTEMIS) Project session in the hospital’s Simulation Center Oct. 15. The ARTEMIS Project is a collaboration with UCSD’s Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory and is partially funded by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command. NMCSD’s mission is to prepare service members to deploy in support of operational forces, deliver high quality healthcare services and shape the future of military medicine through education, training and research. NMCSD employs more than 6,000 active duty military personnel, civilians, and contractors in Southern California to provide patients with world-class care anytime, anywhere. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jake Greenberg)  

SAN DIEGO, CA, UNITED STATES

10.16.2020

Story by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jacob L. Greenberg 

Naval Medical Center San Diego

SAN DIEGO – Surgeons, nurses and specialists assigned to Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD), NMCSD’s Joint Telecritical Care Network and NMCSD’s Simulation and Bioskills Center, as well as personnel from University of California San Diego’s Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory and Human Centered and Ubiquitous Computing Laboratory, collaborated during two Augmented Reality Technology Enabled reMote Integrative Surgery (ARTEMIS) Project sessions Oct. 15-16.
The session featured a simulated, damage control craniotomy on a cadaver, where two surgeons worked together from different areas to complete the procedure.
According to the ARTEMIS Project Mixed Reality Environment for Immersive Surgical Telementoring abstract, the platform allows an expert surgeon to guide a novice surgeon through a surgical procedure while being geographically separated. The ARTEMIS Project implements both augmented and virtual reality technology, uses 3D reconstruction based on depth cameras, body tracking based on optical markers, and hand and finger tracking for the expert surgeon based on inertial measurement unit gloves.
"I felt immersed in the novice surgeon's operating room," said Cmdr. Shawn Belverud, NMCSD's Neurosurgery Department head and expert surgeon during the ARTEMIS Project session. "In addition to our audio connectivity, I was able to get an adequate understanding of what [the novice surgeon] was experiencing."
Patient reconstruction cameras and software scan a patient in real time to the virtual reality environment. The expert surgeon can view the digitally-mapped patient as if they were actually in the operating room. Expert surgeons can also annotate and telestrate, or digitally draw in augmented reality, to better highlight exactly what they want to the novice. Live audio and video feeds are also transmitted to and from both novice and expert surgeons.
"The stylus pen provides a virtual marking that's superimposed, in this case, on the cadaver," said Belverud. "This allows for specific, tangible, supplemental information to be passed, in addition to verbal instruction."
The ARTEMIS Project is ongoing and is past its proof-of-concept phase. The project is partially funded by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command. Amplifying information can be found at the project's website https://artemis.surgery .
NMCSD’s mission is to prepare service members to deploy in support of operational forces, deliver high quality healthcare services and shape the future of military medicine through education, training and research. NMCSD employs more than 6,000 active duty military personnel, civilians and contractors in Southern California to provide patients with world-class care anytime, anywhere.
Visit navy.mil or facebook.com/NMCSD for more information.

• Date Taken: 10.16.2020
• Date Posted: 10.19.2020 16:24
• Story ID: 381091
• Location: SAN DIEGO, CA, US