Network design for telemedicine--e-health using satellite technology.

Over the last decade various international Information and Communications Technology networks have been created for a global access to high-level medical care. OP 2000 has designed and validated the high-end interactive video communication system WinVicos especially for telemedical applications, training of the physician in a distributed environment, teleconsultation and second opinion. WinVicos is operated on a workstation (WoTeSa) using standard hardware components and offers a superior image quality at a moderate transmission bandwidth of up to 2 Mbps.

Collaborative work during interventional radiological procedures based on a multicast satellite-terrestrial network.

Collaboration is a key requirement in several contemporary interventional radiology procedures (IRPs). This work proposes a multicast hybrid satellite system capable of supporting advanced IRP collaboration, and evaluates its feasibility and applicability. Following a detailed IRP requirements study, we have developed a system which supports IRP collaboration through the employment of a hybrid satellite-terrestrial network, a prototype multicast version of wavelet based interactive communication system (WinVicos) application, and a partition aggregation and conditional coding (PACC) wavelet codec.

New trends in the virtualization of hospitals--tools for global e-Health.

The development of virtual hospitals and digital medicine helps to bridge the digital divide between different regions of the world and enables equal access to high-level medical care. Pre-operative planning, intra-operative navigation and minimally-invasive surgery require a digital and virtual environment supporting the perception of the physician. As data and computing resources in a virtual hospital are distributed over many sites the concept of the Grid should be integrated with other communication networks and platforms.

Virtual hospital and digital medicine--why is the GRID needed?

The promise of telemedicine to enable equal access to high-level medical care can only be realised by the development of virtual hospitals, digital medicine and a bridging of the digital divide between the various regions of the world. For this, the concept of the Grid should be integrated with other communication networks and platforms. A promising approach is the implementation of service-oriented architectures for an invisible grid, hiding complexity for both application developers and end-users.

Interactive telemedicine as a tool to avoid a digital divide in the world.

An efficient way of closing the gap in medical care between the EU and its Mediterranean partners is the use of satellite-based networks for telemedical applications. Using standard hardware components and specially designed communication software (WinVicos) various telemedical applications (teleconsultation, telementoring, teleteaching, etc.) have been realized.

Interactive telemedical applications in OP 2000 via satellite.

Using off-the-shelf hardware components and a specially developed high-end software communication system (WinVicos) satellite networks for interactive telemedicine have been designed and developed. These networks allow for various telemedical applications, like teleteaching, telementoring, intraoperative teleconsultation, second opinioning, etc..