Remotely supported prehospital ultrasound: real-time communication technology for remote and rural communities

Telemedicine is a wide ranging subject which encompasses teleconsultation, electronic patient records, continuing medical education and public health information systems. Telemedicine will impact every aspect of health care delivery from remote clinical analysis and consultation between experts based in specialist hospitals, to teleconsultation as a substitute for physical referral between the GP and a hospital, and ultimately the remote delivery of medical monitoring and care into the h ome. Telepresence, where remote human expertise is transported by communications networks to a remote location, has its own unique place within the spectrum of telemedicine applications. This paper describes some of those applications of medical telepresence into which BT have been researching with various clinical partners.

[Abstract]: The healthcare industry in Australia has started using Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) due to the flexibility and ease of use. While certain applications are suitable to PDAs, due to the sensitivity of operations in an emergency department in a hospital, the use of PDAs is not attempted in Western Australian hospitals. In 2002, a team of third year students from Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia developed a wireless system for the emergency department at St. John of God Health Care (SJOGHC) in Perth. The Centre for Electronic Commerce and Internet Studies (CECIS) at Murdoch University in conjunction with SJOGHC facilitated this project using wireless technology. This paper discusses various engineering issues encountered and how they were resolved.

The challenges faced and the methods implemented by the Apollo Hospitals Group in introducing telemedicine in the Indian setting are discussed in this article. Using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to make available secondary and tertiary medical expertise to suburban and rural India was thought of as early as 1997. In March 2000, the world's first Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT)-enabled village hospital was commissioned. Today, with 115 centers including 9 overseas, the Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation (ATNF) is the oldest and largest multispecialty telemedicine network. More than 57,000 teleconsultations in various disciplines, ranging from sexual medicine to neurosurgery, have been provided. Patients have been evaluated from distances ranging from 120 to 4,500 miles. A majority (85%) of these teleconsults were reviews. The successful proof of concept validation studies, carried out from 2000 to 2001 by Apollo, were instrumental in the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) including telemedicine as a major thrust area. The pioneering role played by Apollo is also discussed in using VSAT-enabled Hospitals on Wheels. The paper reviews the significant role played by ATNF in the growth and development of telemedicine in South Asia. Academic activities are also highlighted. The pioneering efforts in the field of m-health, home telecare, the Pan African e-Network Project, starting the first formal educational course in telehealth and various other e-initiatives are elaborated.

The identification of malnourished children living under extreme poverty conditions in isolated areas is crucial to trigger urgent interventions like supplementary or therapeutic feeding. This work aims to strengthen the task of following-up malnourished maternal-child population in rural areas of developing countries like Nicaragua. The solution facilitates low-cost health nutritional remote monitoring to support rural communities at the point of care. Thus, the system allows medical staff to communicate with brigades, who transmit anthropometric measurements, such as weight and height of the children, from communities which are sited about 12 km. far away. A hybrid WiMAX/WiFi architecture was deployed to provide affordable communications between the isolated communities and the health center. Furthermore, a free PBX software and an open information system, installed at the health center, support WiFi based mobile communications and information management to support the care needs of maternal-child population at risk.

This paper analyses the application of information communication technologies for the delivery of medical services, namely telemedicine. As an attempt to understand the working of telemedicine, the Aaragonda project by Apollo hospitals has been studied. Various aspects of telemedicine such as implementation and infrastructure and possible lessons from the implementation of such a project have been highlighted.

This article highlights the deployment of telemedicine by the U.S. Army through the various echelons of care and in overseas locations, including range and scope of health services provided by telemedicine in a challenging environment. This is followed by a discussion of technological developments advances in mobile communications likely to change the practice of telemedicine in the military from limited fixed-point access to a highly mobile individual with handheld communication devices.

Project RavenCare is a testbed for assessing the utility of teleradiology, telemedicine and electronic patient records systems for delivering health care to Native Alaskans in remote villages. It is being established as a joint project between the department of radiology at Georgetown University Medical Center and the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Corporation (SEARHC) in Sitka, Alaska. This initiative will establish a sustained routine clinical multimedia telemedicine support for a village clinic in Hoonah, Alaska and a regional hospital in Sitka. It will link the village clinic in Hoonah to Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital in Sitka. This regional hospital will in turn be linked to Georgetown University Hospital through the T1- VSAT (very small aperture terminal) of the NASA-ACTS (Advanced Communication Technology Satellite). Regional physicians in Hoonah lack support in providing relatively routine care in areas such as radiology and pathology. This project is an initial step in a general plan to upgrade telecommunications in the health care system of the Southeast Alaska region and will address aspects of two problems; limited communication between the village health clinics and the hospital and lack of subspecialty support for hospital-based physicians in Sitka.© (1995) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

History of Telemedicine Although the Institute of Medicine (IOM) first defined telemedicine in 1996 as the use of electronic information and communications technologies to provide and support health care when distance separates participants, the use of electronic communications technologies in medicine is not new [1]. In 1877, a group of physicians created a telephone exchange including local pharmacies in order to facilitate improved patient communications [2, 3]. In the 1970s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Lockheed Martin, and the Indian Health Services teamed together to create the Space Technology Applied to Rural Papago Advanced Health Care (STARPACH) program—a telemedicine initiative involving real time video, data and voice-over-microwave interaction to extend healthcare to a rural setting [4]. Over the past two decades, telemedical systems have successfully connected rural and community hospitals to large urban centers with subspecialty expertise. These initiatives have improved care for specific patient subgroups including those in nursing homes, dermatological complaints, and trauma [2, 5]. In particular, the specialties of neurology and dermatology have employed telemedicine to extend their reach in resource poor settings. Telestroke employs a controlled video camera and monitor screen for a remote neurologist to help diagnose and manage emergency department patients with stroke while static photo technology and emerging live video devices have helped a remote dermatologist complete dermatology consults remotely [6–9].

Summary form only given. This paper describes our preliminary efforts in the development of low cost movable/mobile community telemedicine system for disaster area, especially in Aceh, Indonesia. The system has been developed to support government's efforts, in providing healthcare services urgently required in emergency and disaster situations. It is also expected that the system can be implemented in both urban and rural areas, at a relatively short time, thus primary healthcare services for the community in need could be fulfilled. Basically, the movable/mobile telemedicine system consists of at least: one or some fixed central community healthcare units, one or a number of movable/mobile healthcare units (e-Health Kiosks - each with its appropriate power supply units), dedicated PC server(s), existing telecommunication infrastructure with various facilities, the Internet access, and the appropriate transport vehicle(s). Five e-Health Kiosk prototypes and a dedicated server for the telemedicine system have been developed. Encouraging experimental results conducted in our laboratory and some locations in Bandung, have been achieved. Further efforts to select appropriate satellite phone with Internet access, to obtain suitable transport vehicle and to install the system in Aceh, are currently in progress. Meanwhile, further collaborations are also underway to integrate our system with another telemedicine system concentrated in distance education & tele-consultation and the development of Internet backbone for Aceh, conducted by two different groups at our institute (ITB).

Thesis (DTech (Electrical engineering))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, 2007

All the small scale hospitals can be implemented telemedicine service using 3G internet , computer communication and mobile network In future need emergency treatment for critical position of accident patient. This paper explains the role of Emergency Telemedicine service using internet, computer communication with Healthcare management. The ISRO supports Telemedicine service using 3G internet in rural area and development of telemedicine service fulfilment 95% using computer communication network. In development of 22% in Telemedicine service in 2000 using 2G internet service developed up to 95% by using 3G internet in 2014

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is undergoing great reform. Driven by a demand for higher quality health care provision, information and communication technologies (ICT) are increasingly being used as tools to realize this change. We have investigated the use of remote patient monitoring (RPM), using wireless and broadband networks, in three community care homes between July 2003 and January 2006. The aim of the project was to determine for what conditions and in which setting the RPM was most useful and to establish an organizational and clinical infrastructure to support it. Evaluation of the project demonstrated clinical benefits such as the early detection of cardiac events, allowing prompt intervention and routine monitoring of other conditions. A change in work practices resulted in a more collaborative approach to patient management and led to an increase in communication between health care professionals from different sectors, as well as the establishment of protocols for seeking advice. Technically, the equipment largely met the users’ needs. In conclusion, the monitoring proved a useful tool for the management of chronic diseases and has great potential to contribute to the reform of the NHS.

The combination of network and medical field gave birth to telemedicine.The implementation of telemedicine can improve the uneven distribution of regional medical resources, reduce the working pressure of medical staff, shorten the distance between medical staff and patients and medical staff, and improve the timeliness of monitoring, diagnosis and treatment.The continuous development of telemedicine relies on the continuous innovation of network communication technology, the latest 5(th) generation wireless systems (5G) is bringing significant changes to mobile communication and other related industries by virtue of its advantages of high data rate and low latency. This paper reviews the development of telemedicine, introduces the characteristics of 5G technology, combines the research results of 5G technology applied in the medical field at home and abroad, and prospects the development of this field in the future.网络通信与医疗领域相结合诞生了远程医疗。远程医疗的实施可改善区域性医疗资源分配不均，减轻医护人员工作压力，缩短医护人员与患者及医护人员之间的距离，提高诊疗的时效性，是一项不断发展、应用广泛的技术。目前最新的第五代移动通信技术（5G），正凭借其高数据速率、低延迟等优点给移动通信及包括远程医疗在内的其他相关行业带来重大变革。本文回顾远程医疗的发展，介绍5G技术的特点及其应用于远程医疗的国内外研究成果，并对这一领域的发展进行展望。.