On Tuesday, June 26, Cordis Endovascular, a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson, held a CTO(chronic total occlusion) observation course for 28 attendees at SSF. Live cases were transmitted from the Catheterization Lab while the audience observed and interacted from the teleconference facility within SSF. In the conference center, every seat is miked with flush-set table mikes. They were left live all day, allowing for free-flow conversation between participants and the lab.

The sophistication of the equipment is such that there was no lag time, no missed conversation. Participants could sit back in their chairs or walk around the room. Dr. John Young, SSF's Medical Executive Officer conducted the procedure in the Catheter lab. He, his colleagues and attendees could easily hear questions and interaction. Participants remarked that within the first few minutes, the ambiance was such that they were all virtually in the same room. The 7 large flat hi-def screens made the lab images pop. Multiple front screens allowed for the angio view to be continuous on one, a PowerPoint presentation on another and the lab camera view live on a third. Presentations were seamless in the conference room during turnover or lab down time. The conference room camera was able to zoom in to our presenter's hands for product demos and to project them on the big screens.

Per Libby Lewis, Region Director for Cordis Endovascular,

"The possibilities for meetings, training and conferences are endless. As a next step, we are looking to bring another CTO Observation program here with a "double up" approach....pipe in the Tony Das course while also having live cases in Seattle (really maximizing participants' time viewing cases). We will investigate the connectivity potentials from Dallas to do this. As many of you know, there is an event scheduled through Frank Lyman for live feed with India the end of August.

In addition, there may be some potential to utilize the SSF/University of Washington collaboration for CME certification of live and/or on line content. This facility could easily be used for advisory board meetings to include general meeting format as well as bringing in engineers, labs or physicians from other sites in, virtually.