Organising multimedia technology for real- time transmission of image-guided surgery

With multimedia technology in medicine, new opportunities and challenges emerge, as does problems that need to be solved. Some of the issues that arise when multimedia technology is introduced into surgery are explored, with a focus on the local context of an operation theatre. Based on empirical studies of real-time, interactive transmission of high-quality video and audio, the paper considers some of the technical, medical, and organisational challenges and possibilities. 1