Uncertainty Evaluation for Surgical Processes

Abstract

Principles of uncertainty evaluation for measurement processes and capability studies for production processes have been known for several years and are established in many producing enterprises where they ensure capable and controlled processes. The ability to quantify the processes risk is also desirable for a completely different field, for medical surgery. Especially for new and minimally invasive surgery it is very important to estimate and state the risk of the surgical intervention for the individual patient. To achieve this, principles of metrology and production engineering are transferred to the medical domain and are exemplarily applied for minimally invasive surgery at the inner ear. The contribution shows how the individual patients risk can be expressed analogous to the calculation of capability indices (ISO 22514-1) and how the patients risk for this intervention is directly affected by uncertainty contributions along the surgical process chain.