Bell Canada Uses Cisco for Surgery

HAMILTON, Ontario -- A three-armed robot directly translates a surgeon's natural hand, wrist and finger movements, allowing the surgeon to operate on a patient hundreds of miles away. This may sound like science fiction, but it's now reality following the completion of the world's first hospital-to-hospital telerobotics assisted surgery.On February 28, 2003, Dr. Mehran Anvari, an internationally recognized specialist in minimal access surgery, performed the world's first hospital-to-hospital telerobotics assisted operation from St. Joseph's Healthcare, Hamilton, Ontario to a patient in North Bay, Ontario. Using a specially designed robot operating over Bell Canada's state-of-the-art national IP backbone, Dr. Anvari assisted Dr. Craig McKinley, a North Bay-based surgeon, in performing a laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication (acid-reflux) surgery over a distance of approximately 250 miles.The operation took place over Bell Canada's commercial networking service known as VPNe, or Virtual Private Network Enterprise. Regarded as one of the most advanced networks of its kind, Bell VPNe uses Cisco Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology to enable private IP networks (or VPNs) to be carved out of Bell's national IP backbone infrastructure. "We see the network as a dynamic enabler for the Canadian healthcare industry," said Pierre-Paul Allard, president of Cisco Systems Canada. "In this case, innovation in MPLS VPN networking technology is helping provide critically needed surgical health care services and expertise to remote locations by enabling telerobotics assisted surgery. This application demonstrates that MPLS VPNs can provide a scalable, reliable and secure infrastructure for business and mission-critical needs." Cisco Systems Inc. Bell Canada