Title :
Tele-consulting for collaborative diagnosis and care of heart malformations
Author :
Taddei, Alessandro ; Gori, Andrea ; Rocca, Emiliano ; Carducci, Tiziano ; Piccini, Giacomo ; Assanta, Nadia ; Murzi, Bruno ; Ricci, Giorgio
Author_Institution :
CNR Inst. of Clinical Physiol., G. Monasterio CNR/Tuscany Region Found., Massa, Italy
Abstract :
Medical cooperation with clinical centers of Balkan Countries was developed by the “G. Pasquinucci” Heart Hospital of “G. Monasterio” Foundation in Massa, with the support of the “Heart World” Association and the Tuscany Region, in diagnosis and care of congenital heart malformations. Given the geographical scenery it was important to set up a tele-consulting network over the Internet for multi-center collaborative medical-decision making. Tele-echocardiography was implemented in pediatric or gynecology centers of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania, using videoconference equipment for transmitting on-line over the Internet diagnostic images. Limitations of commercial solutions suggested exploitation of Open-Source technology to set up low-cost devices implementing both live and store-and-forward tele-consulting as well as videoconference and image storage/management.
Keywords :
Internet; biomedical communication; cardiology; decision making; echocardiography; groupware; medical image processing; patient care; patient diagnosis; public domain software; teleconferencing; video communication; Albania; Balkan countries; Bosnia-Herzegovina; Croatia; Internet; Internet diagnostic images; Massa; Tuscany region; clinical centers; collaborative care; collaborative diagnosis; congenital heart malformations; gynecology centers; heart world association; image management; image storage; medical cooperation; multicenter collaborative medical decision making; open source technology; pediatric centers; store-and-forward teleconsulting; teleconsulting network; teleechocardiography; videoconference equipment; DICOM; Heart; Hospitals; Internet; Medical diagnostic imaging; Streaming media;
Conference_Titel :
Computing in Cardiology, 2011
Conference_Location :
Hangzhou
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4577-0612-7