No abstract

Telemedicine the use of telecommunication and information technologies in order to provide clinical health care at a distance helps eliminate distance barriers and can improve access to medical services that would often not be consistently available in distant rural communities. It is also used to save lives in critical care and emergency situations. Although there were distant precursors to telemedicine, it is essentially a product of 20th century telecommunication and information technologies. These technologies permit communications between patient and medical staff with both convenience and fidelity, as well as the transmission of medical, imaging and health informatics data from one site to another. Early forms of telemedicine achieved with telephone and radio have been supplemented with video telephony, advanced diagnostic methods supported by distributed client/server applications and additionally with telemedical devices to support in-home care. There is a growing trend in the health domain to incorporate Smartphones and other wireless technologies to provide more efficient, cost effective and higher quality healthcare. With newer more sophisticated mobile devices for example, Smartphones this is an escalating practice. To date the use of mobile phone technology in the healthcare domain (mHealth) has been limited to uses such as disseminating information. However, mHealth is beginning to include software and data applications based on mobile devices and technologies. This movement is largely due to the advent of newer technologies associated with Smartphones. Some Smartphones can now be considered to be intelligent sensors with sensing capabilities such as Global Positioning System (GPS) location, proximity and accelerometers. This study examines the use of such technology in providing seamless mobile communications for telemedicine.

Since the emergence of telegraph and telephone technologies in the 19th Century, doctors have been communicating and consulting with each other over long distances. Telemedicine, as distance healing was first highlighted in 1970, when Thomas Bird wrote about patient care in which physicians were able to examine their patients by using telecommunication technologies. In short, telemedicine can simply involve two health professionals discussing a case over the telephone, or be as sophisticated as using the satellite technology to broadcast a consultation between providers at facilities in two countries, using video conferencing equip men. Telemedicine has the potential to reduce differences in the lives of people, especially those living in remote areas, away from hospitals and thus deprived of quality and timely medical care. The main role of telemedicine is to provide rapid access to experienced health care professionals at a distance using telecommunications and information technologies, no matter where the patient is located. The spectrum of technology used in telemedicine is broad, ranging from simple phone, faxes and emails, to satellite-based relay transfers and state-of-the-art computer and videoconferencing facilities. We divide video communication in telemedicine into videoconferencing and telepresence. Videoconferencing (VC) is defined as a real-time, live, interactive program in which one set of participants are at one or more locations and the other set of participants are at another location. VC permits interaction, including audio and/or video, and possibly other modalities, between at least two sites. Using VC, technical requirements regarding quality are not usually very demanding. Telepresence, on the other hand, widens the purpose of practice beyond pure communication and has clear requirements, mainly concerning the quality and control of the picture as well as time latency. Surgery has entered the computer age with the advent of video laparoscopy. Magnified and computer-enhanced video image provided surgeons with better exposure and visualization of the abdomen. However, a decade after the launch of the new technology it is still poorly accepted. Most laparoscopic procedures are difficult to teach and learn, in addition, the learning curve is very flat. Obvious weaknesses of new technology are: unstable camera platforms, limited motion of straight laparoscopic instruments, twodimensional imaging and poor ergonomics for the surgeon. Since the introduction of video laparoscopic cholecystectomy, surgeons have speculated that computers, 3-D imaging, and robotics could overcome these pitfalls of laparoscopy.

Telemedicine the use of telecommunication and information technologies in order to provide clinical health care at a distance helps eliminate distance barriers and can improve access to medical services that would often not be consistently available in distant rural communities. It is also used to save lives in critical care and emergency situations. Although there were distant precursors to telemedicine, it is essentially a product of 20th century telecommunication and information technologies. These technologies permit communications between patient and medical staff with both convenience and fidelity, as well as the transmission of medical, imaging and health informatics data from one site to another. Early forms of telemedicine achieved with telephone and radio have been supplemented with video telephony, advanced diagnostic methods supported by distributed client/server applications, and additionally with telemedical devices to support in-home care. There is a growing trend in the health domain to incorporate Smartphone's and other wireless technologies to provide more efficient, cost effective, and higher quality healthcare. With newer more sophisticated mobile devices for example, Smart phones this is an escalating practice. To date the use of mobile phone technology in the healthcare domain (m-Health) has been limited to uses such as disseminating information. However, m-Health is beginning to include software and data applications based on mobile devices and technologies. This movement is largely due to the advent of newer technologies associated with Smart phones. Some Smart phones can now be considered to be intelligent sensors with sensing capabilities such as GPS 1 location, proximity and accelerometers. This paper examines the use of such technology in providing seamless mobile communications for telemedicine.