Vision‐Based Handover and Organization of Robotic Scrub Nurse for Seamless Surgical Flow

Scrub nurses are essential for managing surgical instruments and ensuring seamless surgical flow; however, a global shortage has become increasingly severe. Robotic scrub nurse (RSN) systems have been proposed to mitigate this issue by supporting tasks such as surgical instrument handovers. Nevertheless, existing RSN methods rarely consider the natural manner in which human scrub nurses (HSNs) transfer instruments, including surgeons’ grasping techniques and the orientation of instruments, which may disrupt workflow. To address this limitation, we introduce a pose estimation‐based RSN (PERSN) that integrates vision‐based perception to estimate the surgeon's hand position, orientation, and grasping state, as well as the constraint‐based 6D pose of surgical instruments. A user study involving 17 experienced surgeons evaluated PERSN against both a HSN and the predefined‐location handover (PLH) method. Results showed high success rates in handover and organization. Instruments delivered by PERSN were immediately usable in significantly more cases than with PLH, directly supporting uninterrupted surgical flow. NASA‐TLX analysis indicated that PERSN reduced physical demand compared with PLH, while Van der Laan's technology acceptance scores revealed significantly higher ratings for usefulness and satisfaction. These findings demonstrate the potential of PERSN to reduce surgeons’ physical burden and to enhance efficiency in next‐generation surgical procedures.