Basic information
Title: Synchronized surgical video viewing for remote medical education
Acronym: medFLAME+
Company: medVC.eu sp. z o.o.
Trial/Replicator: Trial
Type: SME
Where: Barcelona
When (time-plan): June to September 2020 (3 months)
Project summary
medVC.eu is a company operating in the video-based telemedicine field. One of our products is the Interactive Medical University portal (https://edu.medvc.eu), which is a platform for improving the qualifications of doctors and medical students in various medical specialities.
The subject of the medFLAME+ experiment is an extension in the functionality for remote medical education, compared to the functionality we have tested in the previous experiment. As the COVID-19 pandemic has disturbed the process of medical education in a severe manner, our services, which allow to teach medical students remotely, are of high need. The medical doctors, except for using our real-time teaching tools, have requested a feature of synchronous live playout of recorded surgical sessions during a live lecture. To facilitate this, we have developed a module that enables synchronous playback of pre-recorded medical videos for the lecturer and the students. During the medFLAME+ experiment, we will test various aspects of the QoS and QoE of this functionality.
The idea of the medFLAME+ experiment is that during a live lecture conducted using web conferencing technology, the professor can choose a VoD that they want to show to the students. When the lecturer starts the playback, it begins synchronously on all the students’ devices. The professor can pause and browse back and forth in the video, and the video players of the students follow those commands. If a student joins during a running session, they get synchronized. This is a crucial functionality, as the professor commenting live on the recorded surgical session needs to be sure that the students see exactly what the professor does, so they can focus their attention on the critical parts of the surgery.
The choice of the FLAME platform for the experiment stems from the fact that it provides mechanisms allowing the introduction of such a scenario with significant bandwidth savings, especially due to dedicated design patterns, like opportunistic multicast and content placement. Of course, viewing of live surgery or surgery recordings is best done in lecture halls or at home, so the choice of infrastructure focused on mobile user experience might seem curious. However, as we aim to deliver medical education for students anywhere they are, we are focusing on scenarios that incorporate being outside or commuting. The medVC platform in indoor scenarios is already being used by our customers, however, members of the young generation want to maximize the efficiency of time spent while commuting and do not want to be tied to a fixed place while learning. That is why we think that the 5G architecture and the functionality of the FLAME platform, as well as the Barcelona outdoor infrastructure, can help us test this aspect of media delivery and consumption.
Check the medFLAME+ blog post here.