No abstract

Teleoperated medical robotic systems allow procedures such as surgeries, treatments, and diagnoses to be conducted across short or long distances while utilizing wired and/or wireless communication networks. This study presents a systematic review of the relevant literature between the years 2004 and 2015, focusing on medical teleoperated robotic systems which have witnessed tremendous growth over the examined period. A thorough insight of telerobotics systems discussing design concepts, enabling technologies (namely robotic manipulation, telecommunications, and vision systems), and potential applications in clinical practice is provided, while existing limitations and future trends are also highlighted. A representative paradigm of the short-distance case is the da Vinci Surgical System which is described in order to highlight relevant issues. The long-distance telerobotics concept is exemplified through a case study on diagnostic ultrasound scanning. Moreover, the present review provides a classification into short- and long-distance telerobotic systems, depending on the distance from which they are operated. Telerobotic systems are further categorized with respect to their application field. For the reviewed systems are also examined their engineering characteristics and the employed robotics technology. The current status of the field, its significance, the potential, as well as the challenges that lie ahead are thoroughly discussed.

This Letter proposes an end-to-end mobile tele-echography platform using a portable robot for remote cardiac ultrasonography. Performance evaluation investigates the capacity of long-term evolution (LTE) wireless networks to facilitate responsive robot tele-manipulation and realtime ultrasound video streaming that qualifies for clinical practice. Within this context, a thorough video coding standards comparison for cardiac ultrasound applications is performed, using a data set of ten ultrasound videos. Both objective and subjective (clinical) video quality assessment demonstrate that H.264/AVC and high efficiency video coding standards can achieve diagnostically-lossless video quality at bitrates well within the LTE supported data rates. Most importantly, reduced latencies experienced throughout the live teleechography sessions allow the medical expert to remotely operate the robot in a responsive manner, using the wirelessly communicated cardiac ultrasound video to reach a diagnosis. Based on preliminary results documented in this Letter, the proposed robotised tele-echography platform can provide for reliable, remote diagnosis, achieving comparable quality of experience levels with in-hospital ultrasound examinations.

The unceasing emergence of new technologies in wireless and mobile telecommunication networks, combined with the simultaneous rapid advances in information technology, are leading to many new solutions in the field of telemedicine, thus offering more opportunities for improving further existing and supporting new advanced services for healthcare. The objective of this paper is to carry out a practical evaluation of the performance of the GSM and GPRS systems in the transmissionlreception of X-ray images and video in emergency orthopedics cases. As expected, the performance of GPRS is superior to that of GSM. The data transfer rate achieved with GPRS were in the range of 32 Kbps with the download time for typical Xray images of a file size of 200 Kbytes to the mobile device to be in the region of 60 seconds. Similar performance was also recorded in the case of a moving station (simulating the ambulance) for the biggest part of the journey. In conclusion, although the medical imaging downloading timing was in the range of a few minutes, the physicians were very pleased by the benefits offered by the system through the freedom of access, anywhere and anytime even in motion.

Rapid advances in information technology and telecommunications, and more specifically wireless and mobile communications, and their convergence (telematics) are leading to the emergence of a new type of information infrastructure that has the potential of supporting an array of advanced services for healthcare. The objective of this paper is to provide a snapshot of the applications of mobile technology in healthcare. A brief review of the spectrum of these applications and the potential benefits of these efforts will be presented, followed by success case studies in electronic patient record, emergency telemedicine, teleradiology, and home monitoring. It is anticipated that the progress carried out in these efforts, and the potential benefits of emerging mobile technologies will trigger the development of more applications, thus enabling the offering of a better service to the citizen.