SC@LE - University of Leicester

Requirements

Camera and recording facilities were required for the recently opened simulation facilities in the Robert Kilpatrick Building at Leicester Royal Infirmary.

The main requirements of the project included:

• Provide recording facilities in the various examination rooms, corridors and ward area
• Implement an easy to use system to allow the recording of the various areas, allowing for up to 5 simultaneous system operators to control from the control room
• Integration with the manikin simulators that are used, so that the vital signs feed can be recorded alongside the camera feeds
• Three seminar rooms required the ability to view live, or playback recordings

The Solution

An IP based camera system was specified and network points and data cabling was installed by the University data cabling contractor prior to the main installation, with points provided for each camera, vital signs connection point and cSkills Streamer (for live viewing and playback).

The PoE cameras are powered via the network point (and PoE switch at the main equipment rack) so there was minimal need for additional main power to be installed.

The system provided recording and playback capabilities in the following areas:

• Examination Rooms x 10 – A single fixed wide-angle camera with integrated microphone was installed in each of the 10 examination rooms. 4 of these rooms also had the infrastructure provide to support vital signs recording
• Corridor Area – 3 x PTZ cameras with associated ceiling microphones, provides the ability to capture footage in the corridors and at the 2 nurse’s stations. The feed from the telephone at both nurse’s station is also captured to provide clear audio of any conversations that take place
• Ward Area x 2 – 2 x PTZ cameras installed in the ceiling provide coverage of the various bed areas, with a ceiling microphone provided to capture the audio at each bed as well
• Seminar Rooms x 3 – 3 x cSkills streamer provides the facility to view live any camera, vital signs feed, or group on the system. The streamers connect back to the main NAS storage in the control room so access to the library of recording for playback is also provided. In each room the streamers display on the existing 80” LED display, and can be operated via wireless mouse and keyboard

The system is operated from the control room, via any 1 of 5 cSkills control laptops. Up to 5 operators can simultaneously invoke recordings and operate the cameras. A single large wall mounted LED display also provides a live view of the various cameras.

Summary

The system in place now provides a flexible and easy way to record, view live, and playback to aid in simulation. Various camera groups (up to 4 cameras or streams) where set up initially for each room and area, the streams of which can be viewed in full screen or a quad split.

Through the project some additional software features were implemented to help aid the process the University follow when running simulations, such as the addition of a timer on the recording module to allow an operator to set a time limit for recording. In this way they can set a room or area to record for up to 5 hours and then walk away from the control laptop, knowing that the system will automatically end the recording after the end of the session.

Furthermore, changes were made in the playback software with the introduction of a basic editing facility, so shorter clips can be created from within the longer video to section off individual students, points of interest, etc.