TORONTO – Bell Canada has offered up its national communication link to help trial telesurgery between Toronto and Vancouver.
Telesurgery is the performance of robotic surgery over a distance, and requires a combination of advanced elements of robotics, communication technologies and management information systems. The procedure offers the promise for patients to have access to surgeons from around the world, without the need to travel beyond their local hospital for surgery.
Working with Titan Medical Inc., Bell said that the tests were conducted during a one-week period over “an unprecedented long distance” spanning roundtrip from Toronto to Vancouver, approximately 7,000 km.
The distances in these tests were implemented to generate “worst-case scenario data”, said Dr. Reiza Rayman, president of Titan Medical, in the press release.
"In day-to-day applications, we expect the distances to be much shorter. These will likely be between neighbouring cities, a tertiary hospital catchment area or proximate offshore locations," Dr. Rayman continued.
Stephane Boisvert, president of Bell Canada’s enterprise group, said that Bell has supported the evolution of telesurgery for several years, and called these tests “an important next step”.
"We have proven in the past that the quality of the Bell network can support telesurgery over shorter distances, such as from Hamilton to Sudbury. But thanks to these tests we are now seeing the very real potential of telesurgery over much greater distances. That means significant benefits for more patients, for caregivers and for the economics of our health care system as a whole, all of which are critically important to the quality of life Canadians enjoy," he said.
