Framework for a telemedicine multilevel diagnose system

We have designed a system that provides support for physicians, regardless of their specializations. The main objective of the system is to ensure an accurate diagnosis to local unclassified patients. Our computerized support system takes as input clinical data collected and stored in an electronic patient record. It generates, as output, a recommendation for therapeutic interventions and laboratory testing, based on a four-level diagnosis process. The process starts with the diagnosis made by the local physician, which will be subject to double verification by local and remote expert systems, and finally approved by an appropriate remote specialist. We have constructed a telemedicine based system called SOS Specialist (SOSS) to achieve our objective. The SOSS will provide quality care to rural areas and also in the big cities where some hospitals and other government organizations are still suffering from the lack of specialists in some very specific domains. A very attractive characteristic of the SOSS is that it has the capability to promote itself, by adding the diagnosis of the appropriate specialist about new cases to its local patient database, and furthermore, it helps the physicians to update their knowledge outside their specializations.