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White paper: technology for surgical telementoring—SAGES Project 6 Technology Working Group

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Abstract

Background

Recent advances in telecommunication technology and video conferencing systems have opened a new avenue for surgical instruction called “surgical telementoring.” This report from the Technology Working Group of the SAGES Project 6 Summit reviews the telementoring technology that currently exists and proposes recommendations for minimum technology requirements and future technology development. While also providing insight in regulatory considerations, this review offers what prospective surgical telementoring participants need to know about the underlying technology with a specific focus on safety, reliability, transmission quality, ease of use, and cost.

Methods

Content experts from around the world, in minimally invasive surgery, surgical mentoring and telementoring, surgical education, business development, healthcare innovation, and regulation were invited to attend a 2-day summit in Los Angeles, USA to outline the current state of surgical telementoring and chart the challenges and opportunities going forward. This article summarizes the discussion, conclusions, and recommendation of the technology group with regard to telementoring technology.

Results

This article reviews the technical requirements which can be divided into the following categories: (1) safety, (2) reliability, (3) transmission quality, (4) ease of use, and (5) cost.

Conclusion

Telementoring applications are technology driven. Given the pace of change of technology, guiding principles in technology design and selection are warranted (Table 4). Telementoring technologies require two basic components, video capturing and display devices at the transmitting and receiving end, and a telecommunication link between them. Many additional features can be added to this basic setup including multiple cameras or video sources, remote camera zoom and pan, recording and storage of videos and images, and telestration capabilities to mention just a few. In general, the cost of these technologies is feature driven. The education framework for each specific application should determine the need for these features (Schlachta in Surg Endosc https://doi.org/10.1007/s00464-016-4988-5).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences - University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway

    Etai M. Bogen

  2. Department of Surgery, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University, London, Canada

    Christopher M. Schlachta

  3. Division of Pediatric Surgery, Akron Children’s Hospital Akron, One Perkins Square, Akron, OH, 44308, USA

    Todd Ponsky

  4. Department of Pediatric Surgery, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Cincinnati, USA

    Todd Ponsky

Authors
  1. Etai M. Bogen
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  2. Christopher M. Schlachta
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  3. Todd Ponsky
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Correspondence to Etai M. Bogen.

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Disclosures

Dr. Ponsky reports personal fees from Conmed, other from GlobalCastMD, outside the submitted work. Dr. Bogen, Dr. Schlachta have no conflicts of interest or financial ties to disclose.

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Bogen, E.M., Schlachta, C.M. & Ponsky, T. White paper: technology for surgical telementoring—SAGES Project 6 Technology Working Group. Surg Endosc 33, 684–690 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00464-018-06631-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00464-018-06631-8

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