Located just outside Chicago, IL, the Spine Master’s Institute (SMI) is the North American Spinal Society’s (NASS) most technologically advanced spine education facility. Spine specialists worldwide visit SMI to improve their proficiency in hands-on surgical techniques and injection procedures, and keep abreast of the latest medical and physical spinal treatments. When NASS needed to upgrade technologies in a new facility, they looked to MSpace.

NASS planned a move to a new location. They looked to MSpace to collaborate to design a state-of-the-art facility that could provide a setting for dynamic, hands-on educational courses for up to 2,000 doctors and serve as a worldwide center for industry research and advocacy.

MSpace engineered a ground-up custom-built audiovisual solution to compliment the needs and functionalities set forth by NASS, encompassing their vision of training and collaboration.

This finished project highlights such technology applications as:

• Automatic camera tracking
• Simultaneous live and on-demand recordings of video, audio and computer images from multiple rooms
• Digital signage
• Complete system control via touch-panels for complete room functionality
• Audio-visual systems integration in a laboratory, auditorium, conference roooms and a corridor museum.

The Bio Skills Lab is truly a one-of-a-kind environment. There are 13 ceiling-mounted LCD displays amid the multiple work station area, allowing students and doctors to view procedures that the training doctor will conduct. The doctor can send images of his or her computer to all monitors for a step by step process. The doctor can also send an image of themselves doing the procedure or an image sent from a scope. Multiple camera angles ensure the right image is being sent. The doctor may also choose to annotate over video to re-enforce a particular point of interest.