HAYSTACK: GIVEN THE choice, most people in need of surgery would opt for a daycare procedure over being admitted to hospital.

With increased use of ultrasound-guided peripheral nerve block technology, the vast majority of surgical cases could be dealt with on a daycare basis, according to the team behind the development of Haystack, a medical simulator that trains anaesthetists in the nerve-blocking technique. (Nerve-blocking is used to block pain impulses.)

"Ultrasound-guided peripheral nerve block represents a major development in healthcare and patient welfare for which inadequate expertise exists worldwide," says Karl Quinn, commercial development associate at the National Digital Research Centre (NDRC) in the Digital Hub, where Haystack is based.

"If it was widely available, up to 85 per cent of all surgery could be carried out as a day procedure.

"This is a complicated procedure that takes a lot of time to learn. Haystack simulates the process by offering a real-time rendering of the sensations and visual images a doctor would experience when performing the procedure.

"Crucially, these sensations and images change, as they would with a real patient, as the doctor advances the needle or manipulates the ultrasound probe," Quinn adds.

Since its formation in June 2009, Haystack has received investment of €500,000 to commercialise its research. It will be taking its first orders for the product early next year. As North America is a prime market, it will begin exhibiting at trade shows there at the beginning of next year.

"Haystack is an excellent example of a collaborative process that uses highly regarded clinician knowledge and procedure from a leading Irish university hospital (Cork University Hospital), and captures that knowledge through the use of software in order to accurately re-teach a relatively new and hugely beneficial procedure on a global basis," says Quinn.

"We are now performing clinical field trials on what we understand is the world's only medical training simulator for teaching ultrasound-guided peripheral nerve block.

"We are very proud that it has been developed in Ireland at the NDRC as part of the catalyser programme, which focuses on creating market capital by investing in research in order to commercialise it."