Sony announced this week that it would update its vendor-neutral medical-imaging platform NUCLeUS to include remote patient monitoring and recording functionalities.

The new features include wireless video streaming that allows clinical staff to access images with an iPad from any modality virtually in real time, according to the company.  

"Sony is committed to developing NUCLeUS to suit the needs of patients and medical staff at all times," said Theresa Alesso, pro division president of Sony Electronics, in a statement shared with Healthcare IT News.   

"The remote patient monitoring capabilities within NUCLeUS are a primary example of this and were developed to help hospitals manage day-to-day requirements through the COVID-19 pandemic," Alesso continued.

WHY IT MATTERS

Interest in virtual care has skyrocketed amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, but remote monitoring tools have taken something of a back seat in the national conversation (as opposed to synchronous, patient-provider video calls).   

Still, seamless information sharing has taken on even greater importance. According to Sony, which received U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance for the platform in January, NUCLeUS's new functionality includes bidirectional telestration capabilities, which allows multiple users to annotate or highlight areas of interest in a live-stream video or still image.  

"Multiple video feeds from endoscopes, surgical microscopes, C-Arms, room cameras, ultrasound and anesthesiology systems, and other sources can be recorded simultaneously in any combination of formats and resolutions," reads Sony's website.  

The file can be securely shared with authorized viewers, recorded and discussed in real time. The situation is ideal, says the company, for "socially distanced environments." Content can also be associated with patient records stored centrally, on a secure basis.  

According to Sony, NUCLeUS's new functionalities also include presenting video streams from multiple operating rooms and ICUs on a single display, an iPad-streaming function, 4k conversion, and enhanced printing capabilities.

THE LARGER TREND  

So-called "smart" operating rooms – and hospital rooms in general – have represented a tempting goal for health systems in recent years. A 2019 Frost & Sullivan report predicted an increase in the number of integrated ORs driven by artificial intelligence and virtual reality.  

Study authors said that home-care-device availability would push ORs toward a "hub and spoke" model, with the OR as a hub.  

The novel coronavirus pandemic has also driven an increase in interest around smart ICUs, with some telehealth ICUs allowing centralized command-and-control facilities to monitor patients from afar.  

ON THE RECORD

"We are committed to helping hospitals and healthcare providers reinvent their workflows and provide medical staff with the tools they need to continue delivering excellent patient care," said Sony's Alesso in a statement.   

Kat Jercich is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Twitter: @kjercich
Email: kjercich@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.