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Med."],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:p>Suturing skill scores have demonstrated strong predictive capabilities for patient functional recovery. The suturing can be broken down into several substep components, including <jats:italic>needle repositioning<\/jats:italic>, <jats:italic>needle entry angle<\/jats:italic>, etc. Artificial intelligence (AI) systems have been explored to automate suturing skill scoring. Traditional approaches to skill assessment typically focus on evaluating individual sub-skills required for particular substeps in isolation. However, surgical procedures require the integration and coordination of multiple sub-skills to achieve successful outcomes. Significant associations among the technical sub-skill have been established by existing studies. In this paper, we propose a framework for joint skill assessment that takes into account the interconnected nature of sub-skills required in surgery. The prior known relationships among sub-skills are firstly identified. Our proposed AI system is then empowered by the prior known relationships to perform the suturing skill scoring for each sub-skill domain simultaneously. Our approach can effectively improve skill assessment performance through the prior known relationships among sub-skills. Through the proposed approach to joint skill assessment, we aspire to enhance the evaluation of surgical proficiency and ultimately improve patient outcomes in surgery.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1038\/s41746-024-01143-3","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,6,11]],"date-time":"2024-06-11T18:04:14Z","timestamp":1718129054000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":11,"title":["Capturing relationships between suturing sub-skills to improve automatic suturing assessment"],"prefix":"10.1038","volume":"7","author":[{"given":"Zijun","family":"Cui","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Runzhuo","family":"Ma","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Cherine H.","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Anand","family":"Malpani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Timothy N.","family":"Chu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ahmed","family":"Ghazi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"John W.","family":"Davis","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Brian J.","family":"Miles","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Clayton","family":"Lau","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yan","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7201-6736","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Andrew J.","family":"Hung","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,6,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"1143_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"487","DOI":"10.1111\/bju.14735","volume":"124","author":"AJ Hung","year":"2019","unstructured":"Hung, A. 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