The concept of providing remote support was originally developed and deployed in industry by offering technical expertise to maintenance field technicians on oil rigs, for example. Other scenarios for remote field video footage include non-streamed recordings in policing. The use in healthcare has been relatively minimally explored.
The urgency of extending this to healthcare now was borne to solve the paradox that the mantra – Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives – didn’t actually work for NHS employees unless the barrier of remoteness can be bridged.
The immersive concept provides eyes and ears on the ground from the clinical front line by streaming a broadcast to remote support for clinical or technical mentoring. By means of 2-way communication, this fulfils a quest to innovate and the concept supports decision-making, teamwork, productivity and not least patient safety.
It enables staff to abide by the COVID-19 boundaries (green Covid-free/blue Covid managed) to mitigate disease transmission as well as enabling general team support within a healthcare system.
Several wearable camera systems exist but the specific requirements pertaining to healthcare make many suboptimal. Surgeons wishing to harness a view of a procedure with precision broadcast might end up with neck pain leaning over to get the optimum view. This is not suitable for surgical broadcast and we see that developments for many camera systems will be required to allow a step change to virtual a reality.
Our Realwear HMT-1 review will be published soon. It has been recommended to proceed to trial imminently to bridge COVID-19 boundaries in support of the NHS frontline.
Contact us to discuss your healthcare requirements and to discuss the HMT-1 device.
