Hands-Free for Operating Room

[Pute]

Does anyone know of a hands-free (NOT headset) solution for use in a hospital operating room? I am looking for a system where the surgeon can stand at the operating table and communicate via a microphone integrated into a surgical column and listen to the talkback through overhead speakers. I know there are confernce room type solutions (Polycom) but the remote units are too bulky.

Thanks,

 

[mextera]

With most phone systems you can auto answer the phone. But when you want to play back to the speakers you limit your self. May need a polycom or another analog device you could halftap to speakers.

 

[paul144]

I would check contact Bogen. They have various paging type setups that I believe would suit your needs.
Are you looking for something that needs to be integrated to your phone system or are we talking about going between 2 locations on site?

 

[skip555]

you might want to get with a paging guy

a few years back I had a church that wanted to do a simil service with a church in scotland so they could call up and have the scottish ministers voice come over their PA and the scottish church could hear their oragan music and preacher

I called in a guy I know aho does sound systems , home theatre type stuff, working togeter we where able to get the speakerphone over the churchs pa system working .

church was pleased and the event came off well.

 

[Pute]

I am looking for a system where the surgeon can essentially have off-site telephone conversations while he/she stands at the table. They do not want to use headsets. There are healthcare integrators that can provide this but you have to purchase thier system which integrates several different hospital IS networks (PACS, Witt, Meditec, etc). We don't need all the integration, but need the hands-free telephone. I have seen Bogen's Talkback amps but am not sure if this will provide the sound quality we need.

 

[fonedude]

I know a surgeon that had that exact setup. He had a boom mike coming off of the light fixture. That was hooked up to a small amplifier of unknown manufacture. This was in turn hooked up to the microphone leads of a 4424 set. It worked ok. The Dr would speak to the mike and the speaker on the phone played the conversation.
Eventually, after about 2 years, it caused the set to fail. I replaced the 4424 and the replacement 4424 only lasted 2 weeks. After that the Dr used a cordless headset hooke up to s/l port. He doesn't like the headset.

 

[ttech]

GaiTronics makes a clean room phone that would hook up to an analog extention on the phone system

http://www.gaitronics.com/products/pdfs/ukpages/B060.pdf

 

[donporter]

This is a headset but I have tested it and it works great.
Limited to only answering and hanging up

http://www.headsets.com/headsets/wireless/plantronics/cs50_hl10/description.html

 

[annacat]

You could look at extending the microphone in the phone to an area that is near the doctor, then extend the speaker of the phone to a bogen amplified (4wire) speaker. What type of phone is it.

 

[ISDNman]

Gee, the Tek Tips site was working oddly yesterday. I posted a reply and got an error (well not really an error, just a ">"). Then for over an hour I could not even reload pages reliably.

Anyway...

The "best" way to do to do this would be to get a digital hybrid that supports a microphone input directly. This would be connected to an analog port off the switch. A POTS phone would be used for dialing. A powered speaker would be connected to the hybrid's "caller out".

Add to this an appropriate directional microphone (a boundary mic might be a possibility) and set things up that the speaker is "behind" the microphone (e.g. in its null).

Then setup the gain such that feedback doesn't occur (this is why you want a digital hybrid, the null in an analog hybrid isn't enough to pull this off well).

Look at Telos or Clear One for possible hybrids:

http://www.telos-systems.com

http://www.clearone.com

Customer support from either of this companies can answer questions, but my summary pretty much covers it.

Good luck

 

[NX01]

Try Avaya's Unified Messaging. It is a voice operated system for listening to voicemail, email and repling aswell. You can set up a computer monitor and run a ip softphone...

In the future everything will work...

 

[Fixin]

The system you want is called Vocera Communications! Check out the demo on it's site!

http://www.vocera.com

 

[donporter]

http://www.vocera.com

I just hear about this one and looked at it. Looks like a OEM of SpectraLink server but with a little more.

Check it out.

 

[allisland]

First I would check local codes, I haven't done OR's in years, but at one time you needed explosion proof phones in the OR's due to the anesthesia and oxygen.

 

[JediBMC]

I remember looking at the Vocera product about a year ago when my hospital was looking to upgrade the nurse call system. I seem to remember that one concern I had was that it was a rather extensive system which required a great deal of hardware. Additionally, it did not extend our existing PBX, instead it was a stand alone PBX requiring a limited number of trunks to communicate with the existing PBX.

Based off of what Pute is looking for, I think that might be a little much. My recommendation, if you have not already done so, would be to contact Polycom. They may have a solution that fits your needs that is not marketed to the general public.

-Brian-
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV.

 

[sentel]

I installed a intercom system years ago for a doctor with foot pedals for activation instread of pucshing a button to talk. He liked it. It still works for him today.



Sola Scriptura

http://www.Sentry-Telecom.com