Telemedicine was defined by The Institute of Medicine as "...the use of electronic information and communications technologies to provide and support health care when distance separates the participants..."

This paper provides information about:

• the history of telemedicine and telecommnications in disaster situations
• issues that must be addressed
• future improvements for disaster outcomes

Historically, telecommunication and telemedicine have been implemented in areas of disaster (due to war or natural causes). Telemedicine can provide expert advice and access to patient information to improve the care of a patient that is in an area that otherwise would not have access to these resources. Medical images can be sent to experts in combination with a teleconference in order to facilitate a remote consultation.

Improvements have been made in telemedicine and telecommunications over the last 10 years as a result of implementation experiences, simulations and advances in data transfer rates. Several Internet resources have been created that are dedicated to providing information for disaster relief. Simulations and virtual reality have been used to train medics in disaster emergencies. Much work is still being done on creating portable devices (like PDAs and wearable computing) to conduct on-site, real-time consultations.

Do you really think a remote "expert" can do a better job of consultation than a local doctor?

There is a tradeoff between the expert and the local doctor. The expert will only have access to the medical images and patient history but will not be able to gain information from being in the same room as the patient. Although this might inhibit their diagnosis, it would still be up to the local doctor to provide treatment based on both the expert's diagnosis and their own.

Local medics are trained in disaster medicine. They are not necessarily experts in everything, so they can use the resources of remote experts to provide better patient care. The paper did not mention any sort of follow up on the quality of augmented care.

It is interesting that they would build satellites specifically for telemedicine, in particular remote psychiatry.

In most cases the satellites were general purpose communication satellites that were assigned to be dedicated to the disaster area at their time of need.

Telemedicine in Combination with Sensor Networks

Although telemedicine in combination with sensor networks is an area of research, there is little documentation on this. The idea is to create a "smart home" for people that need medical supervision, particularly Alzheimer's patients. This will consist of sensor networks that will monitor the patient in their own home and send alerts if any dangerous situations are detected.

Download the Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation or view as HTML

1. Introduction to Telemedicine Slideshow
   
2. Telemedicine Information Exchange
   
3. Virtual Information Center
4. Relief Web