Jackie Cha, a PhD student in Denny Yu's Healthcare Ergonomics Analytics Lab (HEAL), presented her poster at the 2019 Regional Education and Research Center Symposium on Occupational Safety and Health in Disaster Response. It featured work for a University of Michigan Pilot Project Research Training Program (PPRT) grant and was titled "Supporting Surgical Teams: Identifying Needs and Barriers for Exoskeleton Implementation in the Operating Room".

Cha won the "Award for People’s Choice Poster Presentation" at the symposium.

ABSTRACT
Musculoskeletal (MS) symptoms, fatigue, and injuries have a significant impact on worker health and performance in surgical environments. Surgeons, nurses, and other surgical team members (e.g. surgical assistants and trainees) experience MS symptoms which can lead to pain, discomfort, or fatigue during and after surgery. Although the prevalence of MS symptoms is recognized, little has been done to intervene and develop sustained interventions in operating room (OR) environments. The purpose of this work was to implement and assess an exoskeleton as an intervention that will minimize ergonomic risks. Seven surgical trainees and four surgicaltechnicians participated in focus groups. Participants completed a discomfort survey and answered questions regarding technology adoption, supporting worker tasks, and safety and health. Content analysis through inductive and deductive processes was completed to identify relevant themes from participants’ responses regarding exoskeleton adoption in the OR. Four main themes were found: characteristics of individuals, benefits, barriers, and intervention characteristics. Barriers of adopting exoskeletons in the ORincluded maintaining sterilization, lack of familiarity with exoskeletons, and inability to immediately observe benefits brought about by using exoskeletons. Benefits identified were the long-term reduction of MS symptoms and development of ergonomics training. Exoskeleton intervention characteristics such as its usability in the OR and thecharacteristics of individuals were also perceived to impact the adoption of exoskeletons. The themes identified from this study can be used to address future work for successful adoption of exoskeletons for surgical teams.