TESUS: Telesurgical Staffs

• Forschungsstelle: EU FRP
• Projektnummer: 95.0492
• Projekttitel Englisch: TESUS: Telesurgical Staffs

Schlüsselwörter (Englisch)

Telemedicine; telesurgery; teleconferencies; expertises; surgical training

Alternative Projektnummern (Englisch)

EU project number: HC 1050

Forschungsprogramme (Englisch)

EU-programme: 4. Frame Research Programme - 1.1 Information technologies

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

See abstract

Partner und Internationale Organisationen (Englisch)

University Hospitals of Basel, Brussels; St Luc, Brussels; St Pierre, Freiburg, Strasbourg and Toulouse; Alcatel, France Telecom

Abstract (Englisch)

Clinical relevance of telesurgical staff meetings:
Results of an international universities project
Background The appearance of telematics will be of great importance in a growing international collaboration in surgery. Evaluation and validation of experimental links between different surgical teams is mandatory before application in clinical routine.
Method Between September 1996 and June 1998, weekly telesurgical staff meetings were performed between 6 University Hospitals: Basel, Brussels 1St Luc, Brussels 1St Pierre, Freiburg, Strasbourg and Toulouse. The transmissions were performed through 3 ISDN lines at the world wide standard H320 and H323 at a rate of 384 Kb/sec. The staffs meeting were based on presentation on states of the art and clinical cases. The clinical documents were analysed by a panel of surgeons and radiologists. The scientific interest was analysed by a questionnaire reporting the opinions of the participants regarding their experience (senior-junior-trainee).
Results During 60 telesurgical meetings, 60 presentations 'State of the art' and 242 clinical cases were presented for therapeutic advice, treatment debate or because of special interest. The analysis of 40 document sent showed 1000/0 target organ and 95% organ structure recognition. It was possible to recognise fine structure of organs in 45% of the cases. A diagnosis was accurate in 20% of the cases, probable in 55% and possible but uncertain in 250/0. The panel was of the opinion that 95% of the cases presented sufficient clinical information. A rate of 77.8% of the participants regarded the tele-meetings as very instructive from a scientific point of view and a rate of 86.1 % as very useful for surgical education. For clinical practice, 52.8% regarded the tele-meetings useful but 11.1% of the trainees were disappointed.
Discussion and conclusion These preliminary results demonstrate that weekly regular international telesurgical staff meeting between 6 University Hospitals may be profitable. The participants are satisfied at a 77% rate regarding the scientific value and a 86% rate regarding education. The fact that the trainees are disappointed in 11 % should stimulate a improvement of the didactic quality of the meetings. An important factor is the assessment of the quality of the clinical documents transmitted by telematics in order to validate the use of tele-expertise in clinical routine and surgical training.

Datenbankreferenzen (Englisch)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 95.0492