A Mobile Teleconference System for Homecare Services

Telemedicine with mobile communications is a new research area aimed at providing highly flexible medical services that are not possible with standard telephony. In this article, a teleconference system via mobile Internet connections for homecare service is presented. An important purpose of this system is the realization of real time communication between the service station (experts) and the service providers (nurses) in mobile conditions. The following functions are realized via mobile Internet connections: 1) a communication control platform for data transmission and process management; 2) whiteboard function to share image and draw free lines; 3) voice transmission between service station and service providers; 4) system management including data maintenance and database access. In this system, still images and voice data are transmitted in real time between service providers (patient´s home site) and service managers (station site). This study is a new trial to support homecare service with mobile telecommunication technology