Startups

Crowdsourced surgical video library GIBLIB launches

The videos are not peer-reviewed before posting. Instead, GIBLIB is relying on the collective wisdom of physicians to determine which videos to prominently feature.

When Brian Conyer was an MBA student at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and working part time at Intuitive Surgical, a company that manufactures robotic surgery instruments, he was struck by two things.

First, he noticed that surgeons frequently viewed peer-produced videos to learn new surgical techniques. Second, those videos were posted on a mishmash of outlets, ranging from YouTube to Facebook, with little curation for quality or timeliness. Other surgical videos were available only by subscription or purchase, such as the ones in the American College of Surgeons‘ video library.

Eureka! Conyer had an idea: develop a multichannel video library for surgeons where they could post their own videos and watch other surgeons’ videos demonstrating innovative techniques or explaining how they dealt with difficult cases or complications.

Tapping into the wealth of creative talent in Los Angeles, Conyer connected with a content distribution expert, a creative designer, a software engineer and a mobile iOS developer. Thus GIBLIB—named after Dr. John Gibbon, inventor of the heart-lung machine—was formed. After extensive beta testing, GIBLIB officially launched June 1.

Access to the site is restricted to physicians and medical students, who upload and watch videos for free. The videos are not peer-reviewed before posting. Instead, Conley said, GIBLIB is relying on the collective wisdom of physicians to determine which videos to prominently feature.

“We want to continue with the crowdsourcing culture,” Conyer said. “Anyone who feels they have great content can post. The way we deliver and curate is our secret sauce. Just because you upload a video doesn’t mean it will be available.”

Physicians whose surgical videos are well received and frequently viewed may receive revenue-sharing payments. However, how GIBLIB will actually make money, whether from advertising or some other model, is yet to be determined.

“We [are] focusing on the user experience and the product itself. The agreement with the investors is that we not worry about the revenue at this point,” Conyer said.

The GIBLIB team hopes to partner with academic medical centers and medical associations to license their videos for inclusion in the GIBLIB library.

“We’ve talked to a few societies,” Conyer said. “The issue is, you have these competing societies and academic institutions and everyone has their own library of videos. We are trying to aggregate all the content that is out there. As part of a licensing agreement, as we generate revenue, we will split that with the community.”

GIBLIB could be an especially useful resource for physicians and medical students in developing countries, Conyer said, by providing a one-stop access to demonstrations of cutting-edge surgical techniques. Eventually, he said, GIBLIB may also post medical conference videos.

“Our goal is to build technologies that help surgeons connect and share information wit one another,” Conyer said.

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