Supporting Medical Auxiliary Work: The Central Sterile Services Department as a Challenging Environment for Augmented Reality Applications

This paper reports on the central sterile services department (CSSD) as a potential new design space for future research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Augmented Reality (AR). Within the last 2 years, we explored processes, tools and user needs in this field to identify use cases with the capability of enhancing everyday work using AR head-mounted displays (HMD). The conducted research was focused on the potential of applying AR technology as a proof of concept in which 8 problem-driven use cases were identified. These use cases enable interesting aspects for future investigation and utilization of new technologies. In addition to that, this paper describes the insights into user groups, their tasks, challenges, and needs for work support in this specific domain. Furthermore, a sample application is introduced which demonstrates the possibilities of HMD-based AR in the CSSD.