Rods&Cones

Platform for remote access to operating rooms

Solution for remote access to operating rooms for medical experts worldwide

About the client​

Rods&Cones technology enables MedTech experts, assisting surgeons, medical students, and other healthcare professionals, to see and communicate with surgeons working in any operating room (OR), anywhere in the world – in real-time. Rods&Cones’ aim was, and still is, to connect medical experts globally: to ensure everyone has access to the best medical skills, expertise, and advice – no matter where they are.

Goals

To create and upgrade an online communication platform that enables medical experts to virtually scrub into an operating theatre, in real-time, from anywhere, at any time. This telemedicine platform consists of several applications (web, backend, mobile, desktop, browser extension) for consultations during operative procedures, live-stream procedures (e.g., for educational purposes), accompanying administration systems, and reporting solutions.

Solution

The overall solution is a series of applications that enable the establishment of calls via the modern real time media and messaging technology stack between smart glasses and a remote expert using a web application (or an iPhone or desktop application). The remote expert manages the call in several ways – the expert can manage some functions of the glasses, change receiving video, add new audio/video sources, and many other options. The remote expert can broadcast a web stream session to a wider audience, where selected viewers can participate. There are also auxiliary applications for platform administration (managing subscriptions and users) and those that are user-oriented to assist with system use. This project includes all phases of the development process, including requirement analysis with the user, backlog maintenance and planning, design and development, testing, deployment, infrastructure setup, and maintenance. Due to the high sensitivity of patient data, a special focus is on creating a secure and compliant platform.

Technologies

Backend – .NET, Azure services (SQL, functions, events, Redis, Cosmos DB…);
Frontend – Angular, Angular Material;
Real-time communication – modern real time media and messaging technologies;
Mobile – Android Java, React Native;
Desktop – Rust;
Deployment – Azure, Kubernetes (AKS);
Testing – xUnit, Moq

Team organization

A fully dedicated team works on this project, meaning that they do not work on any other projects besides Rods&Cones. It is a self-organizing team that uses an agile approach to achieve goals defined by the client according to specified priorities. It means team members, after the initial incubation phase, are expected to be proactive in solving problems, take responsibility and ownership of parts of the work, and respect the team’s rules and conventions.

Methodology

The Git Flow branching strategy is the methodology we use. Each feature gets its branch and undergoes a code review before merging. A code review is where others (usually seniors) read and try the code and ask questions. The repository is on GitHub, so the team uses GitHub for review and issue tracking. Depending on the current project state, when the team works on several versions at the same time, they also use version branching.