A LOCAL company is at the forefront of the research and development of telemedicine technologies and is driving the specialised field of virtual reality medical and surgical training, both here and overseas.
A LOCAL company is at the forefront of the research and development of telemedicine technologies and is driving the specialised field of virtual reality medical and surgical training, both here and overseas.
According to Medic Vision director Ross Horley, the company has made significant inroads in the field and is working with CSIRO to develop computer-based surgical training models focusing on surgical and medical skills.
The company already provides broadband video conferencing, telemedicine and 3D virtual surgery simulation in hospitals, universities and surgical colleges.
Mr Horley said the demand for telemedicine and virtual reality surgical training had increased in recent times due to the increasing demands placed on surgeons, a more litigious work environment and the high level of scrutiny that medical professionals faced from patients and government legislation.
Mr Horley said surgeons and medical professionals must undergo continual training throughout their professional lives in order to keep up with new medical discoveries and procedures, and that Australian medical expertise was an exportable commodity.
“Australia is primed to export medical expertise to Asia,” he said.
“I firmly believe that the level of surgical and medical expertise in this country far outstrips any of our neighbours and in fact we would be certainly up there in the world when it comes to medical expertise.”
According to Mr Horley, the solutions developed by Medic Vision are ideally suited to medical and surgical training and overcoming geographical distance in medical skills transfer and the provision of medical services in Australia and abroad.
“I believe that telemedicine will be of real benefit to Australia with our sparse population over a huge landmass,” Mr Horley said.
“The technology allows for total interaction including voice, so the person on the other end can talk to the surgeon when he or she is back in the surgery.”
Mr Horley said the benefit was in the sharing of knowledge and techniques across countries and cultures without the associated travel expenses.
“We have conducted numerous telemedicine sessions where live surgery has happened at St John of God and the viewing audience has been in Singapore, Japan, America,” he told WA Business News.
Mr Horley said the technology in telemedicine in Perth was relatively advanced in industry terms, however Medic Vision hadn’t yet enjoyed a high profile.
“The reason is that we haven’t gone out and marketed the potential of the technology,” he said.
The other things is that telemedicine isn’t rebatable under medicare.
“We believe that will change, in fact we’re convinced that will change and so part of our motivation in our telemedicine activities is to get everything in place now so that when that happens, the infrastructure and all the engineering elements are ready to fulfil the demand.”
Mr Horley said the company was pioneering virtual surgery as an integral part of surgical and medical skills training to bridge the gap between textbook and actual surgery, likening it to flight simulation training for pilots.
Current surgical training was often performed on animals or on cadavers, he said, making training difficult due to the tissue responding differently from when an operation was performed on a live patient.
“Some surgery is very difficult to teach unless it is on live tissue,” Mr Horley said.
Medic Vision has strategic partnerships with leading research institutions including Stanford University and Colorado University in the US, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney.
Mr Horley bought Medic Vision earlier this year from the Perth-based telco NewTel for an undisclosed sum through a holding company Mindarie Holdings.
