LifeSize HD video makes virtual collaboration a reality for healthcare practitioners and medical industry innovators around the world.
Launched in 2006, Seattle Science Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to international collaboration among physicians, scientists, technologists, engineers and educators.
Their approach is different. The foundation’s training facilities and extensive internet connectivity are designed to foster improvements in health care through professional medical education, training, creative dialogue and innovation. What’s different is that SSF is not a clinic or a laboratory or a medical institution in any conventional sense of the word.
Seattle Science Foundation also supports a flexible venue for a wide variety of courses, conferences and meetings. In addition to medical training, the facility is ideal for establishing medical device proof of concept and/or product testing with access to cadaveric or animal tissue models, physician expertise, clinical lab staff and sophisticated technical support.
SSF is housed in the James Tower Life Sciences Community. The James Tower emerged from the renovation of the former Providence Hospital in Seattle, Washington to support research and technology-based services essential to modern health care. SSF was a perfect fit.
CHALLENGE: SSF needed a video communications tool that would allow researchers to collaborate and stay connected across the country and around the world; one that could help accelerate research, not hinder it.
SOLUTION: LifeSize® Room™ and LifeSize® Express™ HD video communications systems deployed throughout the SSF facility. Key factors were superior HD quality, price-performance and builtin H.239 data-sharing capability.
RESULTS: LifeSize systems are now used in several areas of the SSF facility: the Kids in Medicine program, the bio Skills lab for proof of medical tool concept and the teleconference center where health care leaders can connect to one another remotely.
Challenge
Visualization and collaboration are very important to SSF. In fact, the foundation features an eight station bio skills lab that provides a realistic operating room environment to advance surgical training, practice new surgical and endovascular techniques and refine innovative medical devices.
Within SSF, video conferencing has played an important role in bringing regionally dispersed participants together. But as the foundation and their facility grew, so did the need for a more powerful video communications system -- one that could provide sharp, crystal clear audio and video quality. A system that allowed remote users to feel like they were right there, sitting in the lab with the on-site team.
Solution
LifeSize® Room™ and LifeSize® Express™ HD video systems were introduced at Seattle Science Foundation’s facility in Washington to positive feedback from administrators and physicians.
SSF’s Teleconference Center now provides a comfortable place from which to conduct didactic courses for up to 60 attendees, each with access to both the instructor in the room, to other rooms within the facility, and to remote participants through SSF’s sophisticated communications system. Eight large high definition screens provide unparalleled viewing from every seat.
Now more than ever before, SSF provides a completely unique opportunity to improve worldwide health care through education and training.
The foundation offers both simulation and cadaveric facilities for surgical and endovascular procedures. The facility is also ideal for establishing medical device proof of concept and product testing with access to cadaveric or animal tissue models, physician expertise, clinical lab staff and sophisticated technical support with audio and video recording capabilities. Classes, demonstrations, conferences and meetings can be captured in high definition then edited on premises to produce a finished project in nearly any format.
Some of the unique areas that SSF has implemented include an eight station bio skills lab that provides a realistic operating room environment to advance surgical training, as well as a separate dry lab space ideal for bench top training and testing.
The foundation provides fresh anatomical material from accredited tissue banks and has a large specimen preparation and storage room.
One of SSF’s most popular programs is the Kids in Medicine project, designed for elementary school age children. The program combines short lectures tailored for the age group as well as real, hands on opportunities with anatomical models, simulators and cadaveric or animal tissue. Kids in Medicine offers a unique look into the human body and stimulates interest in health and medicine.
