AV Technology - June 2008 - (Page 90)

casestudy healthcare Sound From the Heart DON KRESKI, KRESKI MARKETING CONSULTANTS The Advocate auditorium includes three projectors for single or dual-screen presentations. A common use: side-by-side presentations with a PowerPoint on one screen and a live or recorded feed from the operating room on the other. ADVOCATE CHRIST MEDICAL CENTER LINKS A CONFERENCE CENTER TO ITS CARDIAC OPERATING ROOM. by Wendy L. Ellis E veryone is listening for a heartbeat. They are listening in the operating room, in the auditorium, in the lunchroom. They are listening miles away in the museum and in high school classrooms across North America. They are all listening for the same heartbeat. As the skilled hands of a cardiac surgeon bring the live videoconference of open heart surgery to a close, everyone is waiting for the familiar beepbeep-beep of the monitor that means the heart is beating on its own again. Since Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, IL, began videoconferencing live heart surgery from its ORs, countless physicians, nurses, students, and medical personnel of all kinds have watched these delicate procedures come to life. Initially, the hospital connected exclusively to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, through its program Live from the Heart. The OR signal would be sent via T1 line directly to the museum, where an invited audience would view the real time surgery, as would designated high school students across the country. With the opening in 2007 of a new conference center and adult surgical heart unit, Advocate Christ Medical Center has greatly increased its audience and its influence. A sophisticated $450,000 video distribution system now links four operating rooms, a 245-seat auditorium, nine breakout meeting rooms, two open air lobbies, and a dining area. A Tandberg 6000 videoconferencing codec capable of 720i HD images ties the auditorium to the ORs, providing incredibly clear images of this sensitive surgery. “Nobody has anything like this,” says hospital AV director Alan Drachenberg, “I have physicians coming in here and asking, ‘What do you have?’ and I say, ‘What do you need?’ This is unbelievable.” CLARITY CRITICAL Nestled in among the shiny chrome tools of Operating Room 16 are three Sony DXC390 video cameras with AMX pan tilt control, two on robotic arms, and a third fixed to the wall. One of the robotic cameras is positioned directly above the patient’s chest area, the second above his legs to capture vein harvesting during surgery. The third camera provides wide shots plus closeups of the surgeon or his team. The hospital’s AV staff operates the cameras robotically from a mini TV studio housed in the hallway outside the OR. A 20-inch Sony monitor and two JBL Control One wall-mounted loudspeakers bring questions from the viewing audience. Two Sony WRT 860A66M55 wireless mics are available to the team, but strategically placed Shure SM89 shotgun mics are less obtrusive and equally effective in making conversation between the OR and audience seem completely natural. While the importance of visual image clarity in these applications is obvious, clarity of audio is also vital in surgical videoconferencing. Media Resources of Lisle, IL, which designed and installed the conference center AV system, chose ClearOne XAP 800 and 400 audio management and distribution technology to erase the echoes that can cause audio chaos. “In an operating suite a doctor’s hands are kind of busy,” says Scott Woolley, director of product marketing, professional audio, for ClearOne. “Hands free conversation is needed. A headset would limit his mobility. Instead, a microphone is placed so the doctor or anyone else in the room can move about freely, but their audio can still be picked up and transmitted to distant sites.” The challenge was to keep that OR mic from picking up the audio coming from the distant site and sending it back via the doctor’s microphone along with his voice. “What our product does is prevent the audio that comes from a remote location from returning back to that location causing echo,” says Woolley. That problem is eliminated by the XAP units’ echo cancellation technology. Many videoconferencing systems don’t accommodate enough microphones for AV systems as large as this one. “The nice thing about the XAP is that it is also a matrix switcher,” says Brian Maksa of Media Resources. “You can run all your mics into the ClearOne and then run your outputs to the Tandberg codec or your recorder or Sony DVcam and so forth. Different devices sometimes receive signals at different levels, so you may have to lower the level going to the Tandberg, but raise it going to the recorder. The ClearOne is also an equalizer. With a general EQ, any adjustment would apply to all inputs, but with the ClearOne you can tune each individual input. And since it’s PC driven, no one www.avtechnologyonline.com 90 | AVTECHNOLOGY | june 2008 http://www.avtechnologyonline.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AV Technology - June 2008

AV Technology - June 2008 Contents Precedent Corporate: Global Standardization Government: Strategic Technology Planning Education: It’s All Just a Click Pre-Empting Projector Breakdown Dealing With Technophobes Keeping Ahead of Technology Obsolescence Understanding Video Codecs Rules of Engagement Network, See & Learn Sound From the Heart Sportsbook Makes an Impact Upgrading an AV Image Product Review: Polycom’s RealPresence Experience HD Tech Horizons: A True AV Networking Standard? Product Spotlight: Digital Media Servers; Flat Panel New Products Ad Index AV MO: Calculating Fiber Optic Transmission Distance

AV Technology - June 2008

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