Telemedicine system using computed tomography van of high-speed telecommunication vehicle

Abstract

The current medical system provides medical services to patients who visit hospitals. However, medical services can be provided at or close to the home of the patient using fully equipped mobile telemedicine systems. Such a system can identify the disease at an early stage, improve quality of life and prognosis through early diagnosis and treatment, and reduce the costs of medical service. Furthermore, the unit can provide mass screenings of the population, as well as full medical service to remote areas. The Telecommunications Advanced Organization of Japan, Matsumoto, Japan, and Shinshu University Hospital, Matsumoto, Japan, established a research center for a unique telemedicine project using a mobile system. The mobile unit consists of a van that houses a spiral computed-tomography (CT) machine and various telecommunications equipment. The unit allows medical examination, CT scanning, and on-line two-way transfer of image data/teleconferencing to a medical center for consultation with various specialists. We have used the system thus far for the early detection of lung cancer through mass screenings over a four-year period in 29 administrative districts. Mass screenings of 19117 residents resulted in the identification of 75 cases of early lung cancer who were later treated by partial pneumonectomy at Shinshu University Hospital and affiliated hospitals. We have also used the system to provide medical services to rural areas, as telemedicine support at remote areas, wintertime telemedicine support to an international sports competition, and various medical services to a home-care facility.

Trends in e-Health Monitoring Implementation in Sports

“…9,m27 . Other technologies make use of highbandwidth phone or cable television infrastructure to apply two-way interactive video, audio and medical diagnostic instrumentation 27,28 . With the advent of Cloud Computing, the future of e-Health rehabilitation services looks even brighter (Figure 3) 23 .…”

“…Available mobile-health applications include remote routine clinical screenings, emergency and rescue situations, and sports science physiological measurements 25,26 . Satellite systems, in spite of high operating costs, have the advantage of worldwide coverage and offer a variety of high data transfer speeds 27 . The diagnostic accuracy of such an ECG Telecardiology Service was found to be very satisfying 7, 28 .…”

Real Time Simulation of Medical Diagnosis with Confidence Levels on Distributed Knowledge Nodes

“…Medical researchers have applied Internet Technology into various design aspects starting from [12] originated from the [13] project, to the designs of [11] and [21] equipping medical devices and their results to illustrate them on the Internet while WebMIA in [22] and grid servers of DM2 using DICOM in [5] provided medical image processing on the Internet. With many design aspects, the telemedicine has been applied with mobile technology in [4] to support three cores of Naval Telemedicine -hospitals, Fleet Naval Consultation and Diagnostic Centers and hospital ships, [15] using PDA to support online medical information management, [16] to support many sport events located in rural area in Japan and [14] and [9] for medical education.…”

Information Extraction From Sound for Medical Telemonitoring

“…Most of the systems used in this field only take into account medical sensors (blood pressure, pulse, oxymeter) and localization sensors (infrared or contacts) to survey patient [8]- [10]. Current systems use sound and video, but these supports are dedicated only for communication between the patient and the medical staff [11], and not for patient telesurveillance.…”