Centralized Video Encoder for Multi-OR Medical Data
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current medical data recording systems in operating rooms require standalone hardware infrastructure for each room, leading to bottlenecks, limited channel recording capabilities, and high costs due to the need for local storage and VOIP conferencing equipment.
Innovation Solution
A distributed intelligence system that eliminates the need for individual hardware systems by using a video encoder to split and encode video feeds into separate streams, optimizing them for streaming and recording, and allowing continuous recording without user triggers, with the ability to buffer and prioritize data for efficient network use.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If each operating room has its own standalone hardware infrastructure, then each room can independently process and store video data, but this increases device complexity, physical footprint, and costs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the hardware infrastructure from multiple operating rooms into a single centralized encoder unit. Instead of each OR having its own encoder and storage, one encoder serves multiple ORs, consolidating the hardware footprint while maintaining the ability to independently capture and process video feeds from each room through software-based channel management.
Solution Approach 2:
The centralized encoder is designed with multi-functionality to handle video feeds from multiple operating rooms simultaneously. It can process, encode, and manage multiple video channels through a single device, eliminating the need for dedicated hardware in each room while preserving independent processing capabilities through software configuration.
2Reliability
If each operating room has its own central unit with full hardware infrastructure, then each room can independently record and store video data, but this increases the physical footprint and space requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent consolidates the physical hardware infrastructure into a single centralized encoder that serves multiple operating rooms. This merging eliminates the need for separate encoder units, storage devices, and processing hardware in each room, dramatically reducing the total physical footprint while maintaining independent recording capabilities through virtual channel management.
3Loss of energy
If video feeds are heavily compressed for network transmission, then network bandwidth requirements are reduced, but video quality and measurement precision deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The encoder dynamically adjusts compression parameters based on the specific use case. For diagnostic review and archival purposes, the system applies higher compression ratios to conserve bandwidth. For real-time monitoring and critical procedures, the system reduces compression to preserve video quality, allowing flexible optimization of the bandwidth-quality tradeoff.
4Reliability
If continuous recording is implemented without user triggers, then no critical events are missed, but data storage requirements and network burden increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system continuously captures video feeds at a lower resolution or compressed format as a preliminary action, maintaining readiness to record. When a trigger event occurs (such as a detected anomaly or user-initiated event), the system then activates full-quality recording for that specific channel. This approach ensures no events are missed while minimizing overall data storage requirements by only maintaining high-quality recordings when necessary.
Data Source
AI summary
A system for obtaining medical data in one or more operating rooms includes a core module coupled to at least one encoder, a video stream source. The at least one encoder receives and records a video stream of medical data from the video stream source. A decoder receives the video stream from the encoder. A server receives at least some of the video stream from the at least one encoder via the core module and the core module is configured to be coupled to one or more additional encoders and/or decoders.