CESNET to Enable Video Conferences of Ophthalmologists

The CESNET association and CNC Praha will provide technical means for the unique video conferences at the meeting of ophthalmologists called Live and Video Surgery 2008, taking place this Friday and Saturday, i.e. 25th and 26th January. The meeting is organized by the Ophthalmology Clinic of the Central Military Hospital Prague (Ústřední vojenská nemocnice Praha) and the 1st Medical Faculty of Charles University in Prague (1. lékařská fakulta Univerzity Karlovy v Praze). Live transfers of several eye surgeries will probably be the most attractive elements.

Live transfers from operating rooms of the Ophthalmology Clinic will be implemented as a video conference, allowing viewers in the congress hall to see into the surgery area as well as to listen to the surgeon's comments. The video conference will enable on-line interconnection of operating rooms also from several other ophthalmology clinics – Ophthalmology Clinic of the University Hospital Hradec Králové, Ophthalmology Clinic of the University Hospital Brno Bohunice and Ophthalmology Clinic of the University Hospital Ostrava. Demonstrations of the refractive, vitreoretinal and cataract surgery will be shown.

CESNET will provide technology to interconnect multiple parties with video channels, enabling live simultaneous transfer from several operating rooms routed to the conference hall. The transfer will utilize the infrastructure of the CESNET2 research and education network. Experts from CNC Praha have designed a technical video conference solution which will be implemented on every site, providing technical support throughout the entire event. The LifeSize video conference devices deployed will enable HDTV transfers. The technology in use will include a special video conferencing stand, developed collectively as an instrument custom-tailored to the needs of tele-medicine applications.

The same solution was used last year too within the Live and Video Surgery 2007 meeting, when the video transfer enabled physicians from various locations in the Czech Republic to watch their colleagues at work – with virtually the same level of detail as if they were present directly at the given operating rooms. The meeting program included recordings of interesting video sequences from operating rooms of optical surgeons from all over the country. This was the first time ever when a video conference of such extent and with such video transfer quality demands took place in the Czech Republic.

The CESNET association was founded by universities and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The association is currently financed mainly from the resources of the governmental Committee for Research and Education and the resources of the members of the association. The association is engaged in the research and development of information and communication technologies, building and developing the national gigabit optical network, CESNET2, designed for research and educational purposes. With its research activities and accomplishments, the CESNET association can represent the Czech Republic in the European GN2 project as well as other international projects. Among other topics, the association deals with utilization of high-speed networks for multimedia data sharing, both synchronous in the form of video conferences and shared applications and asynchronous as streaming.

CNC Praha provides advanced technologies and services enabling remote team cooperation. The company operates as a system integrator in the area of audio/video/data conferences. Founded in 1995, CNC Praha, s. r. o. conducts business within the entire region of Eastern Europe. The number of applications deployed positions the company among the market leaders. CNC Praha has been granted the ISO 9001 quality management certificate. In 2006 the number of enterprise video conferencing solutions exceeded 500 installations in the region of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Russia and Ukraine. The company has been strongly engaged also in distance learning both in the state and private sector.

Central Military Hospital Prague (Ústřední vojenská nemocnice Praha) has been the first internationally accredited hospital in the Czech Republic since 2004. The accreditation certificate confirms the high level of professionalism of the health care provided as well as establishment of a safe environment for patients. Offering the capacity of 641 beds, the hospital focuses primarily on urgent medicine and treatment of polytraumas. The hospital provides the entire range of health care services excluding obstetrics, podiatry and cardio surgery.