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Tele-medicine projects come off the drawing board

Medicine is one of the most important fields of application of the projects developed by the High Speed Metropolitan Networks (ReMAVs). By means of tele-medicine it will be possible for specialists to exchange ideas at a distance, for the network to make medical imagery available and for diagnoses to be resolved without having to transport doctors or patients around. All this can provide substantial improvement in medical services by assuring greater expediency and resourcefulness.

The São Paulo, Florianópolis and Paraná ReMAVs have developed worthwhile examples of advanced applications in tele-medicine. They work with the DICOM- Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine - standard, which is greatly used throughout the world, even in traditional diagnostic equipment such as X-Rays, ultrasound and magnetic resonance, and in advanced uses, as in computerized tomography and nuclear medicine.

Cyclopsis one of the projects underway at the Florianópolis ReMAV. It contains various subprojects, one of which is the Virtual Diagnosis Room, a development based on Euclides Barros Júnior's Master thesis. In it, various doctors sitting at their personal desktops examine the same X-Ray image from a DICOM bank. They can make drawings based on the image, bring out details and highlight different parts, or they can partake in the written diagnosis through an online editing system. The Florianópolis ReMAV project, led by the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and by Universidt Kaiserlautern in Germany, is mainly geared to hospitals and clinics. As a direct outcome, the DMI Clinic in São José, Santa Catarina and the UFSC University Hospital have linked up. This has enabled doctors to share access to an imaging bank and to analyze these images by means of a voice channel.

Tele-medicine applications coordinator at the São Paulo ReMAV, Marco Antônio Gutierrez, explains that the infrastructure made available by RNP is fundamental to the outcome of the experiments. Pilot tests being conducted link the Heart Institute and the São Paulo Hospital and consist basically of transmission and visualization of medical images between these two locations. This year the São Paulo ReMAV took part in Comdex and demonstrated tele-medicine applications by using a network infrastructure similar to that of the RNP2 backbone.

The Paraná ReMAV project has already been drawn up but is facing problems in raising the necessary funds. According to project coordinator Prof. Roberto César Betini, "a project such as this requires much in the way of resources both in equipment and in specialized manpower. We will have to link up hospitals via optic fiber and acquire ATM hardware not only for network interconnection but also for collection and storage of medical information." The idea has already been brought to the attention of corporations and government agencies and the ReMAV is awaiting a reply in order to proceed with the project.

The Paraná ReMAV aims at developing a site capable of offering services such as distance diagnosis, transmission of medical data and internal automation at hospitals. It also plans to make use of artificial intelligence techniques to aid in diagnoses given by specialists and even detect adverse conditions such as the occurrence of hospital infection in any part of a hospital. The project's primary target is the link up of the Hospitais das Clínicas and the Cajurú Hospital to the Curitiba ReMAV.

Prof. Betini explains that the importance of the ReMAV projects is also related to "human resources training in up-to-the-minute technology, essential to the nation's development." It is of equal importance, he says, "to offer medical and educational services to every level of society, regardless of the region where one is physically located, provided there is access to the network.

The RNP site is fostering abundant news coverage to enable the spread of knowledge about advanced applications being developed by the ReMAVs in several of the nation's capitals. Once the RNP2 backbone is deployed, these applications will be the first to take advantage of a national high-performance networking infrastructure.

For additional information contact:

Cyclops: http://www.inf.ufsc.br/cyclops/
ReMAV Florianópolis: http://www.rmav-fln.ufsc.br/
ReMAV São Paulo: http://rmav-sp.larc.usp.br/
ReMAV Paraná: http://www.rmav.arauc.br/

[RNP, 09.04.2000]