The training takes place in fully equipped medical rooms and is carried out on modern simulation dummies, in which bodily functions such as breathing, heart rate and blood pressure can all be measured. The dummies can even talk, being connected to the microphone of a tutor. The tutors provide instruction from separate control rooms with audio and video links. These links also allow recording for later debriefing sessions.
The AV equipment for the project was supplied by prodyTel Distribution GmbH, who worked closely with the technical staff at the university to design a system that delivered all of the scenarios required.
As training can take place simultaneously with several groups in eight different locations, flexible and parallel control was needed for both audio and video with multiple camera positions. The audio and video content is synchronized and streamed live and recorded.
The complex video streaming is controlled by a REACH system with a REACH CM800 MRS Powolive Server, used for capturing, streaming and recording for the eight rooms. The REACH system processes a total of 15 live video signals from eight groups of cameras in real time. The audio system matrix is handled by three Biamp AudiaFLEX CM with two Biamp NPS-1 networkable paging stations and, for ease of operation, the audio and video for all scenarios is controlled from a Cue touch panel.
Fourteen Community D Series DS5 5-inch, two-way, surface mount loudspeakers provide the audio in both the medical and control rooms. The DS5's were chosen for their high intelligibility and natural voice quality, while their compact dimension and integral brackets made them easy to install.
Dr. med. Dominik Hinzmann, TU München commented, "Our advantage over other simulation centres is clearly in the large number of parallel operating rooms and the number of ad hoc scenarios we can create. The audio quality we have achieved is essential for the reality of each scenario and in a simulation this is invaluable. prodyTel has most ably assisted us with the complexity and implementation of the systems."
(Jim Evans)
