News Story

First Hospital Webcast

Peter Scott, Tuesday 27 Nov 2001

Today, Christine Rospopa presented the Assisted Electronic Communication project in a live and on-line webcast in Kettering General Hospital NHS trust. This was the first live test of the system which is going to be launched with a series in January 2002.

Christine spoke live to nurses across the Trust – in areas such as Accident and Emergency, Medical Admissions, the Coronary Care Unit, and even a rest room on one of the ordinary wards.

The project is using a version of the KMi Stadium webcasting environment where the video of the presentation is accompanied by sychronised slides and a live chatroom for the nurses comments and questions. One critical feature of this technology in the medical context is that staff do not have to leave the clinical areas to engage with the presentations. Also, as the Stadium has an (almost) instant replay facility, staff who could not attend live (eg. night staff, who can often feel excluded from such events) can pick up the replay on the hospital intranet at their convenience.