A multimedia electronic patient record (ePR) system for image-assisted minimally invasive spinal surgery.

Purpose: This paper presents the concept of bridging the gap between diagnostic images and image-assisted surgical treatment through the development of a one-stop multimedia electronic patient record (ePR) system that manages and distributes the real-time multimodality imaging and informatics data that assists the surgeon during all clinical phases of the operation from planning Intra-Op to post-care follow-up. We present the concept of this multimedia ePR for surgery by first focusing on image-assisted minimally invasive spinal surgery as a clinical application.

Methods: Three clinical phases of minimally invasive spinal surgery workflow in Pre-Op, Intra-Op, and Post-Op are discussed. The ePR architecture was developed based on the three-phased workflow, which includes the Pre-Op, Intra-Op, and Post-Op modules and four components comprising of the input integration unit, fault-tolerant gateway server, fault-tolerant ePR server, and the visualization and display. A prototype was built and deployed to a minimally invasive spinal surgery clinical site with user training and support for daily use.

Summary: A step-by-step approach was introduced to develop a multimedia ePR system for imaging-assisted minimally invasive spinal surgery that includes images, clinical forms, waveforms, and textual data for planning the surgery, two real-time imaging techniques (digital fluoroscopic, DF) and endoscope video images (Endo), and more than half a dozen live vital signs of the patient during surgery. Clinical implementation experiences and challenges were also discussed.