Extron AV Technology Facilitates the Dissemination of Medical Knowledge at UNC

El NAV Pro de AV sobre IP de Extron, together with your video wall processor, encoders and decoders and touch screens configure the audiovisual system to carry out the surgical medical sessions at the Faculty of Medicine of the UNC en Chapel Hill (EU).

Like its counterparts among America's top medical schools, the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Northern California (UNC) in Chapel Hill incorporates medical surgical days as an integral part of its curriculum, whose objective is to provide an attractive educational format for the community of residents, staff and students.

Local speakers, Regional and international topics present a wide variety of clinical education topics, scientific research, technological advances and related issues affecting current and future UNC surgeons.

“Providing the best healthcare to everyone through innovation, research and training for the next generation of surgical care healthcare professionals and scientists”, they point out from the UNC.

The medical community worldwide can participate via streaming over the Internet. This also satisfies the main value of the Hippocratic Oath: for physicians to actively and openly share their knowledge to improve patient care.

To support this objective, the UNC surgery department involved Christopher Ferrer, AV engineer from the university's IT department to design and install the necessary audiovisual infrastructure, as part of the renovation of the fourth floor of the building Burnett Womack from the Chapel Hill campus.

The creation of a Surgical Education Center, with capacity for 140 personas, connecting UNC surgeons with their counterparts was central to the project. Ferrer hired the professional integrator ClarkPowell for AV design and installation services, who selected the technology Extron for switching systems, AV distribution and control.

In addition to the extensive Education Center, the project includes new office spaces and conference rooms, which have been completed after three years of work. When UNC's new surgery tower opens this year, the final leg of AV connectivity to the tower's operating rooms will be established through the computer network.

Video wall processor

Whether attendees are in the front row, in the last or on the other side of the world, Surgical Education Center's AV system helps UNC surgeons dissect key concepts as skillfully as they do when holding a scalpel.

Placed in front of a video wall (of 7.3×1,5 metros), a smart lectern streams the video and audio presentation to the AV system from the lectern's computer or the guest speaker's laptop.

Other AV content sources include media players and a wireless hotspot for mobile devices. There are also inputs from a computer located in the control room and from multiple PTZ cameras throughout the space..

He direct view LED video wall It is made up of screens on the left, center and right that work with up to six 4K HDMI sources through a processor As far beyond 305 by Extron, which allows very wide latitude for windowing video images on screens with resolutions, mixed formats and orientations.

The Quantum Ultra video wall processor also provides signals to the two portrait orientation reference monitors facing the lectern and allows, during video conferences, show images of local content, shared and from remote participants simultaneously as three separate images.

Six flat screen computers, located above the audience, reinforce the vision of the rear rows. To interact with remote attendees there are AV transmissions to a video conferencing system Cisco, to software codecs for unified communications platforms such as Zoom, and a multimedia processor for streaming SMP 351 from Extron to send live video, store and archive on the platform Panopto Capturing training sessions.

A control processor IP Link Pro IPCP Pro 555 manages all room functions, including AV signal routing, PTZ cameras and room lighting. Users make their selection through an interactive user interface on the touch screen Extron TLP Pro 1220MG 12” from the wall.

Control room staff can assist presenters with the delivery of AV content during training sessions using the control room computer, as well as with the flat screen display device connected to the computer network of the NAV OFF, and a desktop touch screen TLP Pro 1220TG 12”, which duplicates the functions of the touch screen that the live speaker is using.

AV Content Distribution Center

NAV Pro AV over IP encoders and decoders connect every AV source to every AV destination. The systems manager Extron NAVigator configure and control the NAV system.

NAV Pro was the natural choice for this application because it sends video, audio and AV system control over the UNC data network with ultra-low latency and has easy and economical expandability.

These qualities are essential for an AV system that transports real-time video and telemetry of patient vital signs between a large and growing group of endpoints., like the Education Center with all its sources, display devices and Internet streaming transmissions, conference rooms and staff offices with AV equipment, screens in lobbies and entrances, and operating rooms with AV 24/7 in the new surgery tower at UNC Hospital.

Audio amplification and control

The renovation of the building Burnett Womack, four-story, included the construction of conference rooms that are used independently or as an extension of the Surgical Education Center.

Both rooms have identical AV services. An Extron matrix switcher DTP CrossPoint 84 4K, with audio power amplifier and processor control IPCP Pro integrated, connects selected AV content to an interactive flat-screen, touch-screen display device.

Presenters can select AV content from multiple sources: guest laptops through a switch DTP T ETC 233 three entries, the conference room computer, mobile devices via a wireless access point, a video conferencing camera or any AVoIP NAV network source through a NAV Pro decoder.

A desktop touch screen TLP Pro 725T 7” in the conference room controls the functions of the audiovisual system, including system power on and off, AV source selection, audio volume, etc.

As Christopher Ferrer points out, “using our computer data network, We have been able to send any AV source to any display device. The direct view LED video wall and wide choice of window layouts and video scaling is made possible by the Extron Quantum video wall processor., which provides a perfect display to present a large amount of information, as patient reports, photos and live video, all at the same time, and readable both near and far. All of this, along with AVoIP NAV network, that connects all the meeting spaces on the fourth floor, "They have exceeded expectations.".