Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.
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conference exhibit halls earlier this year, and other equipment manu- facturers are likely to follow in adopting the visual standard. These high-profile introductions couldn't have come at a better time for Marshall Medical. "We tried out 3 or 4 systems, and when our physicians saw the 4K, they just gravitated toward it," says Tim Bean, MHSA, BSN, administrative director of the Guntersville and Boaz, Ala., hospitals. "The picture was pretty stunning on it." So do your ORs need 4K? Read on for the big picture on why you might just become an early adopter, as well as the reasons why other facilities are taking a wait-and-see approach. Let's start with the numbers. Ultra-high definition imaging delivers 4 times the resolution of the current "full HD" video standard. What this means is, while the HD screen in your OR displays a matrix of 1,920 pixels horizontally and 1,080 vertically, ultra-HD has at least 3,840 hor- izontally (the approximately 4,000 pixels to which the designation "4K" refers) and 2,160 vertically. With more than 8 million active pixels on screen, the result is an intensely detailed, immersive image, especially when it's projected on a 55-inch screen. The colors of captured images are rendered from a wider, brighter palette than HD and the sharpness of magnification astounds those who have observed the technology's complete scope-to- screen imaging chain in a procedure or an exhibit hall simulation. None of the image quality is lost or goes grainy by zooming in. "When they rolled this out, it was a completely different level of imaging," says Mr. Bean. "You can see more detail than ever. It's almost too bright for me." While some of his ORs have been outfitted with a 55-inch screen, "the 29-inch are plenty large enough," he notes. The step up to state-of-the-art was deemed a worthwhile expense at Marshall Medical. As the integrated components of its HD systems required more and more maintenance attention and the need to S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 6 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 1 1 3