Feasibility Study of Implementing of Telesurgery in Hospitals Affiliated to Tehran Universities of Medical Sciences, Iran

Hospitals employing telesurgery need to be evaluated to determine whether they satisfy the international standards. The main goal of this research was to assess the software, hardware, telecommunication equipments, privacy and security methods, and staffing requirements for supporting and executing telesurgery in hospitals affiliated to Tehran universities of medical sciences, Tehran, Iran. This descriptive study included 23 hospitals affiliated to Tehran universities of medical sciences. Hospitals were selected by stratified sampling followed by simple random sampling. Data was collected by observation and interviews using a checklist. Descriptive statistics was applied for data analyses. According to our findings, 10 studied hospitals employed telesurgery among which 90% used telementoring, 30% used teleproctoring accompanied by telementoring, and 10% used telerobotic surgery. None of the hospitals used telepresence surgery. Most common equipments were video camera (80%) and microphone (100%). TCP/IP was the most common telecommunication standard with which most hospitals were more familiar. Moreover, 80% of hospitals used informed consents in order to assure the security and privacy of telesurgical information. Overall, we consider the hospitals which employ telesurgery in weak conditions in terms of satisfying the related standards. Accessing and distributing appropriate infrastructures, equipments and transferring methods and standards are main prerequisites for successful implementation of telesurgical applications.