TELEMED project

Summary

The TELEMED project is an application Pilot (R 1086) of the RACE (Research and development on Advanced Communications) program of the European Community (CEC) and is partially funded by the Commission. It consists of 15 partners in 8 European Community countries and 4 partners from 3 EFTA countries.

The overall objective of this project is to examine the problems which arise when participating physicians communicate over IBCN. The features and retirements specified above shall be analyzed in particular, so that an overall Cooperative Diagnosis and Therapy can be realized as application pilot. In addition, the consequences of the corresponding organization and operation of these services on the clinic work must be examined.

• In this connection the following problems are dealt with as individual objectives: For the storage of images (x-ray photographs etc.) appropriate methods and data compression techniques are being developed, allowing the transfer of bulk data to physical storage media.

• For the storage of records uniform data structures are being selected or rather defined in order to permit multi-media applications.

• For the access to the records suitable retrieval techniques and a query language for medical applications are being examined.

• High-level protocols are being analyzed in order to allow access in an “open system”, i.e. the retrieval of data records stored in different data bases by means of access methods and various manufactured display-consoles will become possible, (independently from the manufacturer)

• Transmission protocols are being selected and developed

• Data base architectures are being selected allowing access times necessary for an application as e.g. image transfers, (frequency of picture change 3 seconds)

• High-speed transmission of real time video in real-life applications are being defined and examined.

The work undertaken in this project will comprise also the problems concerning the special needs for security, accuracy and integrity of the record data. Here the objective “appropriate techniques and management methods” has to be proposed, which may be the first step towards an integrity of patient data.