Funding
The MRCAS Lab has been consistently funded for the past 10+ years to conduct cutting edge research, including major randomized control trials.
Past and current funding has included support from the National Institutes of Health, Veterans Health Administration, and industry.
Ongoing Research Support
Speech-based Technologies to Detect and Improve Interprofessional Team Behaviors in Cardiac Surgery
Role: Principal Investigator
Dates: 2026-2030
Description: The proposed research addresses communication and teamwork failures during cardiac surgery, which is a major contributor to preventable adverse events in cardiovascular care. By developing AI technologies that automatically identify ITBs and provide personalized formative feedback to surgical teams, this project seeks to improve team performance, patient safety, and the quality of cardiovascular care. The proposed work aligns with NHLBI's Strategic Vision by advancing innovative technologies that enhance healthcare delivery, optimizing implementation and clinical research aimed at improving patient outcomes, and generating new knowledge about the behavioral and organizational factors that influence cardiovascular health.
Intelligent Perfusion Digital Twin to Improve Safety and Quality in Cardiac Surgery
Role: Principal Investigator
Dates: 2026-2030
Description: This research addresses a critical gap in the safety and performance of cardiopulmonary bypass procedures by developing an intelligent, real-time decision support system for perfusionists based on digital twin and explainable AI technologies. By leveraging routinely collected electronic health record data and integrating human factors research, this work aims to reduce intraoperative errors, improve patient outcomes, and lay the groundwork for future AI-autonomous surgical systems. The proposed technology has significant potential to enhance the precision, safety, and standardization of cardiac surgery care across diverse clinical environments.
An AI Coach for Enhancing Teamwork in the Cardiac Operating Room
Role: Principal Investigator
Dates: 2022-2026
Description: The goal of this multi-disciplinary project is to develop an intelligent agent – referred to as the “AI Coach” – that enhances surgical teamwork by monitoring and assessing the collaborative performance of surgical teams using multimodal sensor hardware and transformative data-driven algorithms, as well as by providing human-interpretable and usable feedback to the members of surgical teams for enhancing teamwork and reducing preventable errors through an intelligent user interface.
Completed Research Support
A Robot-Assisted Perfusion System to Improve Patient Safety in the Cardiac Operating Room
Role: PI of Harvard Subcontract (2022-2025), Principal Investigator (2021-2022)
Description: The goal of this project is to develop a system that will learn from expert perfusionists in the cardiac operating room and will be integrated into the surgical workflow as an artificial intelligence teammate. This clinical decision support system will support perfusionists during critical decision-making and will be used to standardize gold standard patient care, mitigating errors, and preventing patient harm.
A Novel Cognition-Based Guidance System to Improve Surgical Safety
Role: Principal Investigator
Dates: 2020-2025
Description: The goal of this project is to develop novel approaches to using process and patient real-time data, and device status information dynamically and proactively to provide guidance forward from the current surgical state. We will develop and test intraoperatively a Cognition-based Guidance System which will support individual and team interactions via dynamically updated electronic guidance that are responsive to the details of the on-going process (i.e., context-aware), to the patient’s current medical condition (i.e., patient-aware), and to cognitive workload demands on the participating clinicians (i.e., workload-aware).
Developing Standardized Intraoperative Process Models to Enhance Surgical Safety
Role: Principal Investigator
Dates: 2016-2019
Description: The rates of preventable harm to patients in the U.S. are at concerning levels. The operating room is the most common site for adverse events in the hospital. To enhance surgical patient safety we introduce a novel approach that leverages advances in information technology. We propose to develop and analyze innovative surgical process models to facilitate standardization of critical procedural steps in cardiac surgery ("smart checklists"). We have assembled an experienced multidisciplinary team and we anticipate that our novel approach will contribute to a transformational redesign toward a health system that is waste-free, harm-free and highly reliable.
Robotic Crawler for Epicardial Interventions
Role: Principal Investigator
Dates: 2004-2016
Description: The major goal of this grant is to develop a semi-autonomous epicardial crawling robot (Heartlander) to enable image-guided minimally invasive treatment of heart failure.
Safety of Robotic Surgery (SAFROS)
Role: Investigator
Dates: 2011-2016
Description: The goal of this multicenter European and North American consortium is to apply cognitive science approach to improve safety of robotic surgery.
Articulated Robot for Epicardial Interventions.
Role: Principal Investigator
Dates: 2006-2015
Description: This project focuses on the development and evaluation of an innovative approach for performing minimally invasive cardiac surgery (MICS) based on a highly articulated robotic probe (HARP).
Snake Robot for Intrapericardial Navigation
Role: Principal Investigator (Investigator-initiated)
Dates: 2003-2004
Description: The major goal of this study was to develop a prototype medical snake robot for intrapericardial navigation around the beating heart.
Docking Minimally Invasive Tools to the Beating Heart
Role: Principal Investigator (Investigator-initiated)
Dates: 2002-2004
Description: The major goal of this study was to develop new approaches to robotic beating heart surgery using an organ-mounted system.
Use of Thoracoscopic Surgery using the ZEUS robotic system (Robotically Assisted Instrumentation and Visualization) in a Porcine Preparation
Role: Principal Investigator (Investigator-initiated)
Dates: 2000-2001
Description: The major goal of this study was to establish a minimally invasive model for training in robotic surgery in a porcine preparation.
Clinical Investigation for the use of the ZEUS robotic surgical system for Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG)
Role: Principal Investigator
Dates: 2000-2001
Description: The major goal of this FDA-sponsored study was to evaluate the ZEUS robotic Teleoperated surgical system for construction of the left internal mammary artery anastomosis to the left anterior descending coronary artery in humans.