The power of voice in the OR: Bridging high tech, human realities

There is a surgical data dilemma in today’s operating theatres (OTs) that embodies striking contrasts: cutting-edge robotic arms share space with hastily recorded notes on blood-stained paper, while computer terminals distract caregivers with a daunting array of data fields.

Despite advancements in technology, even top Middle East hospitals lack reliable data on what happens inside the OR.

Understanding what separates excellent surgical outcomes from poor ones, or operations that run like clockwork from the chronically inefficient ones, often remains elusive.

A systematic review of 91 studies found significant inconsistency in how OTs collect data, reinforcing the need for more structured, trustworthy, and real-time data practices in surgical environments.

Surgery often operates at extremes, with outcomes ranging from miraculous to catastrophic. When successful, surgical teams are heroes. And when surgeries are conducted with operational efficiency, everyone wins: more patients are treated, patients benefit from reduced risks of infection, and hospitals earn more revenue at greater margins.

In the UAE, healthcare quality and efficiency are quickly advancing under digital health agendas of the DOH (Abu Dhabi) and DHA (Dubai). As the country invests in advanced surgical technologies and smart hospital infrastructure, the ability to capture clean, real-time data in the OT is essential to ensuring those innovations and best practices lead to a measurable impact.

So, how can hospitals optimise notoriously data-poor, high-complexity processes where patient lives and hospital economics alike are on the line?

What’s needed are technologies that not only improve data capture but also meet clinicians where they are in their workflows.

Tools that bend to them as human professionals, freeing their attention to focus on care and collaboration, instead of driving documentation burnout and job dissatisfaction.

The promise and peril of voice technology

Even within the generally risk-averse healthcare industry, it’s especially challenging to introduce new technologies to surgical environments.

Maintaining sterility amidst constant movement and unpredictability, along with the time pressure of cases and high-stakes decisions, all contribute to an environment where less can be more and technology must get out of the way.

Voice technology faces similarly stark extremes of outcomes, though typically, with lower stakes. When voice systems fail to understand, users quickly abandon them. But when voice technology succeeds, seamlessly and reliably, it feels magical.

Incidentally, the chaotic but delicate nature of the OT environment is a uniquely strong fit for voice technology’s ability to aid users who must stay hands-free, juggle multiple tasks at any given time, and need to input or access data in an instant without fumbling with a keyboard and mouse.

When a voice assistant can seamlessly capture commands like “record tourniquet inflation at 09:37”, or “set a 60-minute reminder for the next antibiotic dose”, clinicians experience effortless integration into their workflow. But delivering on this promise brings with it both technical and design challenges.

Documentation: From distraction to flow

Surgical teams are frequently burdened by essential yet distracting tasks.

Constantly shifting attention from patients to interdepartmental phone calls, pen-and-paper documentation, and cumbersome electronic medical record (EMR) interfaces disrupts efficiency and can compromise patient safety, illustrating an irony of modern surgery: extraordinary technologies support complex clinical interventions, yet fundamental workflow challenges stubbornly persist.

With voice-enabled systems in the OT, clinicians can document and coordinate hands-free, allowing them to stay focused on patient care.

As surgery progresses, key updates can be automatically shared with perioperative teams and departments that often face delays, like the post anesthesia care unit (PACU).

For example, if a case is running longer than expected due to a complication, the system can trigger an alert to the OT manager that “OT4 is running 30 minutes behind scheduled Wheels Out time”, helping teams respond in real time to avoid bottlenecks.

Voice also enables the capture of more specific, real-time clinical details – essential for fueling continuous improvement initiatives and ensuring accurate billing. When clinicians document unexpected intraoperative events by simply saying “record unplanned laparoscopic-to-open conversion at 10:45”, hospitals significantly reduce reimbursement disputes. When documentation is as easy as talking while repositioning a patient, this revenue gap closes quickly.

Easing mental load and elevating safety

Even the simplest voice assistant features, like setting a timer or reminder, become surprisingly valuable in a clinical context. Saying, “remind me to check on specimen pickup in 20 minutes”, or “remind me to check blood products at 11:15″, helps reduce cognitive load and minimise avoidable errors. Adoption isn’t just driven by convenience, but by a belief in its clinical value. Roughly 69 per cent of doctors want more workflow-embedded AI tools like this.

The potential of voice technology extends beyond efficiency. By reducing direct device interactions and surface touches, it significantly decreases contamination risks, potentially lowering the incidence of surgical site infections (SSIs).

Voice technology complements other OT AI systems, such as video and ambient audio tools, which rely on passive inference – extracting meaning from raw recordings without human input. Voice, by contrast, is explicit. A system might detect “a syringe was used,” but only a clinician saying, “document 1 mg epinephrine push due to sudden hypotension”, captures the why.

Voice preserves intent, and by extension, clinical judgment.

Read: Using AI for medical diagnosis? What you should know about its safety

A future of surgical clarity

Ultimately, voice technology represents far more than streamlined documentation; it embodies clearer communication, precise clinical records, reduced cognitive burden, and enhanced patient safety.

While voice has already transformed millions of doctor offices globally, bringing it into the OT demands solving for noise, diverse accents, and real-time decision-making. But recent breakthroughs in speech recognition and AI now make it possible to capture structured, actionable insights from voice, even in the most complex surgical environments.

Leveraging voice assistants that are tailored explicitly for the OT empowers regional clinicians to overcome both technical and workflow-specific hurdles. By combining advanced AI solutions with human-centered design, voice becomes more than a high-tech upgrade; it becomes a trusted, sterile-ready tool, an invisible teammate, and a natural extension of the surgical team.

This vision also aligns with the We the UAE 2031 initiative, which emphasises building an advanced, integrated healthcare system that upholds national values and ensures high levels of readiness. As regional hospitals continue leading with innovation, voice technology offers a clear path to unlock safer, more efficient, and higher-quality care – at scale, and on the front lines.

Eric Turkington  is the chief product officer (CPO) at Rain Stella Technologies