Jewish General Hospital finds tech solution to heart surgery during the pandemic
When COVID-19 hit Montreal, the Jewish General hospital, like many other hospitals, quickly became off-limits for many elective surgeries including for those involving the heart.
Bringing teams of specialized surgeons in for installing cardiac valves, for example, became a logistical nightmare, said Dr. Lawrence Rudski, who is the director of the Azrieli Heart Centre at the Jewish.
"For these procedures, we normally bring in people from outside," he said. "We only did the most urgent cases. We have partnerships with other centres."
The solution involved connecting the team doing the surgery with an expert who was up to date on the very latest intravenous valve replacement technologies.
That doctor, Sam Radhakrishnan, monitored the surgery from his Toronto office.
"We worked in collaboration with our colleague, Dr. Sam Radakrishnan, in Toronto who was able to see almost everything we see in the operating room, and he can comment and we can see every step of the procedure," said Dr. Ali Abualsaud, a cardiologist at the JGH who took part in the experiment.
This is how it works: Dr. Radhakrishnan is watching remotely from his office, while the other team, in Montreal, is inserting a replacement valve through the aorta on the patient. A technician from the valve manufacturer is making sure the device is loaded correctly.
Back in Toronto, Radhakrishnan is monitoring vital signs and other things in real-time on his screens, while providing guidance to the surgeons.
Think of it as a Zoom session on steroids.
"We had to reinvent a way to broadcast all the screens, like fluoroscopy, echography, vital signs and add to augmented reality with lenses," said consultant Marcel Lafontaine, president of Auger Groupe Conseil based in Trois-Rivieres, which developed the platform in partnership with Medtronic Canada.
"Our job was very simple," he said. "Let's bring the operating room to the office of the doctor. The guy can do two cases in the morning, two in the afternoon."
The technology was developed for cardiology, but it can be applied elsewhere.
The valve technology was developed by the Canadian division of Medtronic, a medical device manufacturer.
"We can imagine that it could be expanded to other types of surgeries, and therapies as well, but it was more urgent to carry on in the heart sector," said director Richard Pare.
It's a new world in the operating room, one where virtual reality could soon be the next step.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Federal employees will be required to spend 3 days a week in the office
Starting in September, public servants in the core public administration will be required to work in the office a minimum of three days a week. The Treasury Board Secretariat says executives will need to be in the office four days per week.
Concerns about plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall plexiglass barriers.
OPP officer said 'someone's going to get hurt' before wrong-way Hwy. 401 crash
As multiple Durham police cruisers were chasing a robbery suspect on the wrong side of Highway 401 Monday night, an Ontario Provincial Police officer shared his concerns, telling a dispatcher, "Someone's going to get hurt."
Canada's most wanted fugitive arrested in P.E.I. in connection with Toronto homicide
A suspect in a fatal shooting in Toronto’s east end last summer has been arrested in Charlottetown, just one week after he topped a list of Canada’s most wanted fugitives.
Poilievre returns to House unrepentant for calling Trudeau 'wacko,' Speaker not resigning
An unrepentant Pierre Poilievre returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to pepper the prime minister about his drug decriminalization policies after being booted the day prior for refusing to take back calling Justin Trudeau 'wacko' over his approach to the issue.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Göring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Toddler of Phoenix first responder dies after bounce house goes airborne
A two-year-old child died after a strong gust of wind sent the bounce house he was in airborne and into a neighbouring lot in central Arizona, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office said.
Plane overshoots runway at airport in St. John's, N.L., no injuries reported
Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are headed to St. John's, N.L., after a plane overshot a runway at the city's airport this afternoon.
A teen was found buried in a basement in New York. An engraved ring helped police learn her identity two decades later
Investigators have finally revealed the identity of an unknown victim nicknamed 'Midtown Jane Doe,' who was found in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York City two decades ago.