Tuesday 26 September 2017

Telemedicine


Telemedicine is one of the most beautiful applications of satellite communication. In general terms, telemedicine can be defined as the application of information and communication technology to provide clinical health care from a distance. Telemedicine can make use of traditional terrestrial telecommunication technologies (telephone, GSM, cable, optical fibre) but it can also make use of satellite telecommunication to allow for health care in very remote places. In this way, patients and doctors in remote places can consult more specialised doctors in larger centres where all required expertise is available.

To give an example, millions of people live in the vast delta of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra river, mostly in boats along the shores of small islands. Hospital ships can sail around in a particular area to provide the local people with hospital services. These hospital ships are usually manned by a limited staff of doctors and nurses. It is impossible for these hospital ships to have a specialist on board for every possible medical problem. Therefore these ships are now being equipped with parabolic antennas and satellite modems so that ship doctors can get in touch with other doctors, hundreds of kilometres away. More advanced telemedicine also allows for robotic surgery from a distance, as well as consulting of learning systems based on large databases of processed patient records.

On September 26th, the church commemorates Cosmas and Damian, twin brothers and doctors in the Middle East in the second century. They  became famous in their time, taking care of the poor and refusing all payment for their services. Even if this is only a typical Christian legend, it is a nice image. Nothing is more noble than taking care of the impaired fellow human being. Today, this care requires more than ever collaboration between doctors and engineers. Cosmas and Damian can rightfully be considered patron saints of medicine and telemedicine.

See also this SES blog and the Satmed web site. I also refer to my blog: “the digitalDivide”.

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