Hospitals and medical universities throughout the world are seizing the opportunity of video conferencing-based TeleMedicine: the opportunity to offer more diagnosis, more consultation, and more teaching for a relatively small investment. This is because TeleMedicine enables doctors and consultants to `visit` other institutes without the need to travel.
In line with this, ETA Audiovisual has been appointed a reseller of the Sony TeleMedicine equipment, based on the Sony video conferencing equipment.
The Sony hardware has the internationally recognised German TUV approval. This means that the hardware will not interfere with equipment in operating theatres, and is the only telemedicine system of its type offering this facility.
"With TeleMedicine, specialists and consultants can be in five or six places at once, offering patients advice, and colleagues a second opinion. All from the convenience of their own surgery. It makes sound economic sense and creates better healthcare for everyone in the region, and beyond," explained ETA managing director Mike Hattingh.
"TeleMedicine has always been an excellent strategy to optimise hospital resources and income, but recently it has become even more efficient thanks to advances in Sony`s high-quality video conferencing," he explained.
Why video conferencing?
Video conferencing operates over a wide range of public and/or private digital networks: from a simple two-line ISDN connection of 128Kbps up to 2Mbps. Hence, it`s very easy to implement and can easily be built into current IT investments and infrastructures.
Unlike other online TeleMedicine systems, it provides moving pictures instantly. All parties in the video conference can see and hear exactly what is going on, and can give comments and advice in real-time - a must in any medical consultation. But perhaps the single most powerful reason why many doctors prefer video conferencing is that it provides near-TV quality video and instant file-transfer.
The result is `eye-to-eye` contact, and it`s the next best thing to actually being in the same room as the people you are consulting with.
Today, high-quality video conferencing is enabling consultants to study, for instance, microscopic applications, and simultaneously discuss the diagnosis with colleagues at other locations.
Medical students are `attending` endoscopic operations performed in theatres located in different countries and even different continents. General practitioners are also getting instant face-to-face consultation from hospital specialists across the globe.
Benefits for hospitals
Linking hospitals via video conference instantly injects valuable specialist and consultancy expertise into each and every department. It is possible to have the country`s leading consultants in maternity, paediatrics, gynaecology, surgery, EN&T, radiology, pathology, orthopaedics and more all available in a hospital to help with diagnosis and consultation.
Benefits for doctors
With video conferencing, doctors can consult with others in their field - wherever they are located. Obtaining second opinions, in endoscopic applications for example.
Benefits for medical students
Medical students can learn from experienced surgeons, who otherwise could not teach due to travel-time constraints. Students can also `attend` and observe close-up surgical procedures in operations conducted thousands of miles away. They can see and hear how the consultant conducts the operation, and afterwards they can ask him or her questions, review crucial parts of the operation - in slow motion if necessary on video - and they can even make copies of the procedure for later reference.
Benefits for patients
Video conferencing helps ensure that valuable expertise and specialist skills are shared among the maximum number of doctors, students and hospitals. This improves healthcare overall, and in many cases can mean the difference between life and death.
Case study
The Institute of TeleMedicine in Belfast is currently pioneering a TeleRadiology system. It uses a Sony high-end video conferencing system to transmit X-ray images to a consultant radiologist who can then examine the images on-screen while simultaneously talking to a doctor or nurse at another hospital. The institute`s solution feeds images via the video conference system, to transmit images from a rostrum camera placed in front of a lightbox illuminating the X-ray film.
This simple yet effective solution allows hospitals to make dramatic cost savings, while eliminating the need to courier precious X-rays from an outlying hospital to a radiologist.
In the past, video conferencing was an expensive technology. But due to the proliferation of ISDN lines, dramatic price reductions in hardware, and technological advancements that have eliminated jerky pictures and poor lip-sync, video conferencing is now a precision communications tool for the medical world.
Share
Editorial contacts