A multi-stream tool to support transmission in surgery applied to telemedicine

Abstract

The increasing network bandwidth capacity and the diminishing costs of related services have led to a rising number of applications in the field of Information and Communication Technology. A special case is applications based on video streaming. Telemedicine can be highlighted in some scenarios for applying this technology, such as clinical sessions, second medical opinion, interactive lessons or virtual conferences. These scenarios often imply a dedicated transmission environment. A restriction in such solutions is the inability to handle multiple video streams. Thus, this paper presents a low-cost infrastructure for video collaboration in healthcare and based on open technologies. The proposed infrastructure enables remote management of simultaneous multiple streams. We also discuss results of experiments held in the Lauro Wanderley Academic Hospital, Brazil. One of the results is the contribution for teaching experiences, particularly by allowing students to remotely regard surgical procedures and providing real-time interaction. Finally, we present new prospects for using the developed technology on other applications in Telemedicine and Telepresence. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.