Scarborough Health Network (SHN) is known across our community and Central East region for leading cardiac care–and now we’ve got the world watching. Our cardiac program has started hosting live broadcasts of volunteer patients’ cardiology procedures, joining the ranks of leading academic centres in bringing clinical education to international audiences.
SHN has invested in a new Medinbox audiovisual system that is installed in one of our three catheterizations labs within the regional cardiac centre at Centenary Hospital. This new technology first allowed our team of interventional cardiologists, supported by IT and nursing, to broadcast a series of live cases at the annual Canadian Chronic Total Occlusion (CTO) Conference, held in fall 2023, which includes attendees from around the world. Following that success, we were once again selected to be a site performing live cases at this year’s conference.
“The 2023 and 2024 conferences were the first events in Canada to feature this many live coronary cases. We are pioneering this educational approach here in Scarborough,” said cardiologist Dr. Ram Vijayaraghavan, who is the service lead for the catheterizations labs at SHN, and was instrumental in spearheading the CTO conferences and leading the live case initiative at our health network.
“Our cardiovascular and stroke department’s vision is to become a worldwide leader in the field of complex percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI). With the successful live case demonstrations to a Canada-wide audience, including international leaders in PCI, this has been a highly successful step forward.”
What is a live broadcast of a case and why do this?
Healthcare professionals globally, especially in the area of cardiology, will tell you there is no substitute for learning from an experienced colleague performing a procedure. It allows you to get in close to view minute details, as well as watch the complex workings of the procedure room and precise sequence of many people’s actions. You also get to ask questions, such as why a certain technique was used, what to look out for that might require an unplanned course correction, or how it feels to use a new type of equipment.
Until recently, this kind of collaboration meant traveling to be on-site to observe live cases where they were being performed, or crowding the operating space with an audio-video crew that would film the live case over a doctor’s shoulder. These methods were time-consuming, costly, and intrusive.
Now with new technology, high-definition and compact audiovisual equipment can be set up within a procedure room to livestream a case for clinicians to watch online, regardless of where they are in the world. The video feed can be controlled remotely by the demonstration host as well as participants, with the ability to pause, rewind, zoom-in, and record the live broadcast.
A turning point for clinical education led by SHN
With this cutting-edge technology, the world can learn from what SHN has to teach. Through the value we bring in high-volume expertise, SHN is evolving into an education centre for complex PCI and leading the shift to involve community health networks in the health education domain. This has further impacts on our patient population, with people in Scarborough and the surrounding region receiving leading interventional cardiac services and exceptional quality care into the future. “This achievement was made possible thanks to our expert team, our patients and families, and our valued partners. Following the successful broadcast of these live cases, we are next planning to host an event in December 2024” shared Dr. Vijayaraghavan.
