What is TELESYNERGY®?
- TELESYNERGY® is the use of equipment and communication devices for long-distance collaboration between medical institutions
- TELESYNERGY® can be used for any activity that relates to the education, prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of any patient’s condition in any medical field
- Developed by National Institutes of Health scientists and engineers to facilitate communications between cancer researchers around the world
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Allows synchronized viewing of high resolution images amongst collaborators.
- Collaborators can view and manipulate images from scopes, X-rays, MRI, PET, CT and other medical imaging devices
- TELESYNERGY® allows physicians and scientists across the state or across town to seek a second opinion with another expert. They can view the same material, while also seeing and speaking with each other, as if in the same room.
- “Same Room” experience supports mentoring between trainees and mentors from different institutions, whether across continents or across cities
Benefits of TELESYNERGY®
- Interoperability with a variety of environments
- Can be integrated with existing systems and databases
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- Affordable and flexible
- Minimum maintenance
- Images viewable in multiple locations and on multiple devices
How TELESYNERGY® is different from Skype, WebEx and other video-conferencing services
- Today, we have multiple means of communicating, far more than we had ten or twenty years ago.
- We can communicate by phone, app, even videoconferencing, using tools developed by numerous providers, such as Skype or WebEx.
- However, viewing high-resolution images, like X-rays and MRI, are not possible with these services.
- Other services put their emphasis on maintaining a quality audio connection at the expense of video
- Most services display images which are low-resolution, preventing detailed viewing of X-ray images which require high-resolution in order to identify cancer lesions, estimate tumor size, etc.
- TELESYNERGY® images are synchronized, allowing collaborators to see exactly the same images, whether on microscopes, X-ray view boxes, tablets or computer monitors.
TELESYNERGY® Use Cases
- Expert or Second-Opinion Consultation
- Physicians in rural or geographically-distant locations can consult in real-time with experts with knowledge of rare cancers or other less-well-known conditions
- For example, review of patient’s blood and bone marrow slides and immunophenotyping results, confirmation of the diagnosis and a real- time discussion on the natural history of the condition and possible treatment options for patient
- Other Uses
- Tumor Review Boards
- Mentor-Mentee Training & Distance Learning
- Grand Rounds, Seminars & Continuing Medical Educational Programs
- Patient Screening for Clinical Trials & Clinical Trials Implementation
- Single-User Diagnostic Imaging Workstation
Future Development of TELESYNERGY®
- Move to cloud connection with modular, off-the-shelf components
- The network was initially designed to be independent of the Internet for both security of patient data and for speed and reliability of the video-conference audio, video, and data.
- As network technology continues to improve, we expect TELESYNERGY® to make use of secure IP connections in the future.
- Development of a Software Development Kit and Software Reference Manual
- To allow medical centers across the world to assemble their own TELESYNERGY® systems.
- Encourage manufacturers to provide drivers to connect their instruments to TELESYNERGY®.