Advantech Collaborates with Brandon Medical and Entoli Medical to Improve Operation Room Efficiency and Safety

Photos provided by Brandon Medical and iStock
Interview with Adrian Hall, Chief Operating Officer, Brandon Medical

Time is critical for active surgical teams. Working in the OR, where every second matters and details affect outcomes, is exceedingly stressful. Multitasking in a precision-oriented and fast-paced environment for hours at a time requires careful teamwork. Professionals need to be organized yet flexible, capable of communicating non-verbally, highly skilled, and share a same sense of urgency. Unfortunately modern ORs are often cramped — comprising multiple surgical platforms and several operating staff. These conditions make it difficult to maneuver and can yield communication delays. To address these issues, surgical teams use modern technology to monitor patients’ vital signs, critical body functions, and operating procedures on various screens. The use of such screens reduces communication errors and improves treatment.

4K technology progresses into the operating theatre

As display and video capture technologies progress from HD to 4K resolution, medical visualization technology and minimally invasive surgery (MIS) equipment has been upgraded to 4K to provide sharper images of tissues, blood vessels, and human anatomy. “We are seeing much greater use of minimally invasive surgery. These cameras, which are inserted into the body, guide surgeons through endoscopy. At present, the majority are HD video but are rapidly moving to 4K. When surgeons are performing minimally invasive surgery, they need the best images to guide them. These cameras are essentially their eyes,” Adrian Hall, Brandon Medical’s Chief Operating Officer said.

s a result, screens in modern ORs are getting bigger. On one hand, 4K screens allow every team member to see the same live image from a distance without compromising viewing quality. This ability eliminates crowding around monitors. On the other hand, having more screens means more devices to manage during surgery. Even if medical devices can capture 4K images and video, difficulties arise when managing a 4K data source —processing 10 ~ 20-gigabit data streams is exceedingly challenging. Additionally, MIS necessitates zero latency and compression video to create an immersive and precise viewing experience.Brandon Medical has 30 years of experience designing and manufacturing medical products in the UK. Conversely, Entoli™ Medical has expertise in providing medical control platform software solutions. To address modern OR equipment and data management issues, Advantech cooperated with these two partners to create the Entoli™ Medical Controller, a highly efficient a 4K integrated OR medical controller.

Advantech’s zero-latency immersive 4K viewing experience

Entoli™ Medical developed a simple, intuitive, and cost-effective control suite aimed at integrating devices and equipment. This suite provides full control of video switching, recording, cameras, and lighting from a single tablet computer. Entoli™ simplifies staff training by streamlining OR work and equipment into a single concise system. Using Entoli™ every OR functions the same regardless of individual attributes.

Advantech cooperated with Brandon Medical to offer a cutting-edge 4K integrated OR medical control solution using proven technologies. This control solution is aimed at helping the Entoli™ Medical Controller manage and display images and videos collected from multiple sources. Advantech’s AVAS medical-grade 4K ultra-HD video recorder can transfer live video into an IP data stream with near zero latency, providing a realtime immersive viewing experience with zero video compression. With the help of Advantech’s 10G-perminute transmission technology, and zero-latency 4K ultra-HD videos and images, surgeons can easily maneuver inside body cavities with enhanced fine pattern and structure observation. This improves the safety and efficiency of MIS and enables long-distance surgery training. This system has been adopted at Sheffield Teaching Hospital in the UK and is positively received by clinical teams.

Using the Entoli™ Medical Controller, AVAS helped integrate complex data for viewing through two PAX touch screens, all on a user-friendly interface. The intuitive tablet interface allows surgeons to manage the video sources — either an endoscopic screen, an operating room monitor, or information feeds from other equipment. Surgeons are able to customize the interface according to their needs and make better use of the OR space. AVAS is also future-proof as it fits the demands for standardization and can be customized according to different information requirements for varied hospitals and physicians. The system is flexible and extendable. Indeed, other functions and devices, such as surgical light control and AI data management, can be added.

The Entoli™ Medical Controller leverages Advantech’s excellent product reliability and quality, and Brandon Medical’s 30 years of experience in design and innovation for OR environments. This makes a winning combination for future smart ORs. The value of co-creation is mirrored in the successful business model created by these three parties.