The company

Medical equipment manufacturer, Brandon Medical, has been delivering equipment for acute and primary healthcare worldwide for 75 years.

And the UK-headquartered business is constantly innovating and developing new solutions to provide hard-working healthcare professionals with reliable, high-quality, and affordable medical equipment packages for operating theatres and critical care in more than 70 countries.

In recent years, Brandon Medical has been working alongside Schneider Electric in the development of the multi-award winning Medicontrol iTCP.

The challenge

The Medicontrol Intelligent Theatre Control Panel (iTCP) was conceived in 2017 as a central control panel for managing the operating theatre environment.

Until this time, it had not been possible to monitor and control functions of the building management system that help control environmental conditions such as air flow and temperature, alongside operating room equipment such as lighting in the operating theatre.

Better patient outcomes are always our ultimate goal and the technology we produce always works to serve that

In order to bring together information from medical equipment and the building management, Brandon Medical recognised it would need some intelligent hardware that bridged the two environments using industry standard building management communication protocols.

In Schneider Electric we found a willing partner and the required expertise to develop the Medicontrol iTCP, and the partnership has delivered a step-change in operating theatre management for end users in more than 300 hospitals around the world.

The technology

With the combined expertise of Brandon Medical and Schneider Electric, the Medicontrol iTCP offers a central control panel designed specifically for medical facilities that acts as a single digital truth for medical operators, helping deliver better results for patients now and in the future.

Nigel Davill, chief technical officerat Brandon Medical, said: “Better patient outcomes are always our ultimate goal and the technology we produce always works to serve that.

“The development of the Medicontrol iTCP is no different.

“While we were coming from a standing start in the realm of industrial PLCs, we needed a partner organisation which could bring the Building Management System control knowledge to combine with our sector-specific expertise.

“Schneider Electric understood those needs straight away, providing a pathway to integration that encompasses all elements of operating theatre control.”

The Medicontrol iTCP offers a central control panel designed specifically for medical facilities that acts as a single digital truth for medical operators, helping deliver better results for patients now and in the future

Mariano Sanchez, technical manager at Schneider Electric, added: “Having been in the industry for such a long time, Brandon Medical has an unrivalled understanding of the space and can predict the needs of the sector ahead of time, especially when it comes to integration needs.

“Previously, the medical control of operating theatres was kept separate to the building management system.

“The Medicontrol iTCP solution connects what’s happening in the operating theatre to what’s happening in the building through data.

“Essentially this creates a ‘black box’ control and contextualised data-capturing solution for the medical facilities sector.”

Understanding the data

The top-level displays and menus are designed specifically for the clinical staff who use them every day.

And drill-down menus make it simple for engineering and maintenance staff to access increasing levels of technical information for maintenance and fault finding.

By using technology that works with Building Management Systems (BMS) and building communication protocols, rather than PC-based systems, the Medicontrol iTCP integrates easily with both new and refurbished operating theatres and medical facilities.

This culminates in a solution that contextualises data from all outcomes in an operating theatre – positive and negative.

As with all technology, the industry was desperate for an integrated hardware solution that not only delivers value through preventative maintenance now, but has unlimited potential to integrate and add functionality in the future

Having the data to understand why events happened ensures clinical staff have the information to make the end result better for every patient.

Medicontrol iTCP is the first operating theatre control panel that bridges both the operating theatre equipment and building management system to create smart care areas in the digital hospital.

Siloed operations

Medical facilities have traditionally taken a siloed approach, keeping systems separate to ensure clinical staff have total control over their specific environment.

As with all technology on the consumer and business side, the industry was desperate for an integrated hardware solution that not only delivers value through preventative maintenance now, but has unlimited potential to integrate and add functionality in the future, protecting the investment of Brandon Medical customers.

Davill said: “The best analogy for the development of the iTCP and the problems it solves is like the first iPhone.

“We provide the hardware for our customers that comes with instant functionality, but the potential is there for customers to seek further functionality, safe in the knowledge the hardware will be up to the task.

“This value also has to be delivered in a way most beneficial for the busy clinical staff.

“Operator overload is a very real concern and the last thing these busy operators need is to navigate information that doesn’t help, but that information is useful elsewhere in the facility.

“For example, clinical staff in the operating theatre need insight into ultra clean ventilation, temperature, humidity, and lighting, all critical in an operating setting.

“At that time, historic data combined with BMS wouldn’t be necessary, but later on other members of the enterprise may need to drill down and understand more information outside of clinical data that might have influenced outcomes.

“The iTCP represents information designed specifically for the operator, at exactly the time they need it.”

Preventative maintenance

Brandon Medical’s Medicontrol iTCP enables preventative maintenance through improved integration.

For example, lighting is critical in an operating theatre and, with the iTCP, the status of the operating light be monitored remotely, including factors like the temperature of the LEDs.

The Medicontrol iTCP removes the complexity seen in competitive products, providing a wizard-driven solution rather than having to alter the source code

This means Brandon Medical is able to alert customers to likely failures before they incur downtime, and replacement parts can be ordered and fitted without affecting planned operations.

This is especially important in the UK’s NHS. where capacity is stretched and downtime means procedures being cancelled and knock-on negative impacts for patients and scheduling.

This is just one small example of how the monitoring works in an operating theatre, and similar examples of how the data can be used to improve outcomes and ease of use can be found across an array of other capabilities of the iTCP, including air quality, power supply, video recording, intercoms, staff deployments, and operational status, all via an intuitive interface.

Proof points

Sanchez said: “By working together at such an early stage, we were able to introduce Brandon Medical to the EcoStruxure Machine products from the industrial automation side of building management.

“The technical team worked closely with Brandon Medical throughout the development to create a fully-programmable device with the flexibility to accommodate late design changes and add extra services.

“By gathering data about the patient and the environment (both inside and outside the operating theatre) operators can see issues which could affect the patient.

“There’s increasing interest in smart and automated buildings and by creating the first panel to connect with new and emerging technology in a hospital setting, we are seeing the first generation of digital hospitals.”

Adrian Hall, chief operating officer at Brandon Medical, added “The Schneider Electric hardware world is designed to provide controls of machinery or building systems.

“What we have done is taken that automation and built a smart and configurable control panel for the operating theatre.

There’s increasing interest in smart and automated buildings and by creating the first panel to connect with new and emerging technology in a hospital setting, we are seeing the first generation of digital hospitals

“This is a unique product as hospitals can take a long time to be built, so it is ordinary for a customer to request a control panel solution for something that doesn’t yet exist without fully understanding what functionality will be needed.

“This challenge previously meant we were developing solutions for the future and when it came time to deliver, the needs of the customer had changed.

“The Medicontrol iTCP represents a flexible solution built from our many years of experience that can meet the needs of customers now and in the future.”

EcoStruxure approach

But the connection between Schneider Electric and Brandon Medical doesn’t end with just the Medicontrol iTCP.

As an integrated addition to the Schneider Electric EcoStruxure suite and the full family of smart products under that umbrella it allows for a joined-up approach to managing the whole building.

The Medicontrol iTCP removes the complexity seen in competitive products, providing a wizard-driven solution rather than having to alter the source code.

Again, this means clinical staff can access the information most relevant to them, presented in the most-valuable way.

Of a recent deployment at the Royal Sussex Country Hospital in Brighton, Hall said: “Brighton Trauma, Teaching and Tertiary Care (3Ts) Hospital was an interesting use case as that hospital has Schneider Electric building management across the facility.

“This means the integration goes one step further, integrating what is happening in the operating theatre with what is happening in the generator room, for example.

“In the Brighton 3Ts example the isolated power system, which protects patients and surgical staff from electrical faults, was provided by a competitor, but the integration was made possible through EcoStruxure, as the BMS can easily connect these two systems.

“This is functionality that is deliverable and being used by customers today, and also a sign of the future because as facilities get smarter, our panel solution will be right there to integrate seamlessly with the functionality they need.”