The future of enterprise groupware applications

This paper provides a review of groupware technology and products. The purpose of this review is to investigate the appropriateness of current groupware technology as the basis for future enterprise systems and evaluate its role in realising, the currently emerging, Virtual Enterprise model for business organisation. It also identifies in which way current technological phenomena will transform groupware technology and will drive the development of the enterprise systems of the future

Remote Inspection of Medical Images through High-speed Networks

In health care practice, diagnosis and therapy tasks are founded on the analysis of medical images. Traditionally, such analysis was performed using optical devices like light boxes or microscopes installed in clinical rooms or laboratories. In the last decade, personal computers have revolutioned this practice and today medical imaging is based on soft-copies of image material rather than films or specimens. Acquisition, storage and display of medical images are performed through digital computers and/or workstations. More recently, the introduction of networked computers has lead to the concept of telemedicine, that is making available remote medical facilities through the use of personal computers and digital networks. In this document we analyse the problem of real-time performance in telemedicine applications and we propose a new architecture that allows the interactive and real-time exchange of medical images. This architecture is based on a hierarchical database to store images, an high-speed network to transmit images and a navigation module allowing the user to dynamically select the portion and resolution of the images under inspection. In the second part of the document we describe, in particular, the prototype developed according to the described architecture and we discuss performance and optimization aspects

Telemedicine application at the University of Rochester Medical Center Strong Memorial Hospital in conjunction with the New York State Department of Corrections

Telemedicine has been around for several years and it is inevitable that this technology will shape the current healthcare environment. Doctors are often faced with the challenges of the laws of time and distance. With the presence of telemedicine, the idea of having access to a physician at any given time becomes a reality. This paper will present an exciting concept of telemedicine for today and tomorrow with an emphasis on the advancement of health care delivery systems. This thesis will also attempt to present the cost saving factors that telemedicine can provide not only to patient care but also to the financial and administrative aspects of healthcare. It will provide a summation of goals, design description and the initial cost of implementing a telemedicine application. This paper will be a combination of discussions on general telemedicine applications and a practical implementation. It culminated with a presentation of an actual telemedicine project that the University of Rochester Medical Center implemented in conjunction with the New York State Department of Corrections telemedicine project. I was a member of the team that designed and implemented the first true telemedicine application for Strong Memorial Hospital. Jeannie L. Christensen - Page 4 of 81 Capstone Thesis It consists of an outlined discussion as presented on the Table of Contents and the networking design proposal to implement a telemedicine project. The paper also investigated some other telemedicine applications at the University of Rochester Medical Center that can be implemented in the future. We tried to follow a rigid timeline, but due to some delay on procuring the leased line we fell a little behind on the implementation. The committee for Telemedicine in Strong Memorial Hospital met on a regular basis and assessed the technological needs of each department. Below was the tentative timeline for the project itself. The dates changed based on how promptly the vendors were able to meet the project requirements: March 30, 1998 - T1 Installation March 15-20, 1998 - Support Staff Training April 15, 1998 - Test Phase April 30, 1998 - Final implementation My primary role in this implementation is to design the wide and local area network for the University of Rochester Medical Center. I also participated in several of the committee meetings which outlines other administrative issues involved, such as the emergency room renovations, feasibility of extending video conference services, discussions on cost and billing issues, and a visit of an actual correctional facility to observe its telemedicine application

The World-Wide Web past present and future, and its application to medicine

The World-Wide Web was first developed as a tool for collaboration in the high energy physics community. From there it spread rapidly to other fields, and grew to its present impressive size. As an easy way to access information, it has been a great success, and a huge number of medical applications have taken advantage of it. But there is another side to the Web, its potential as a tool for collaboration between people. Medical examples include telemedicine and teaching. New technical developments offer still greater potential in medical and other fields. This paper gives some background to the early development of the World-Wide Web, a brief overview of its present state with some examples relevant to medicine, and a look at the future

Effective Virtual Teams through Communities of Practice

This paper examines the nature of virtual teams and their place in the networked economy. It presents a framework for categorising virtual teams and argues that fundamental changes have taken place in the business environment which force people and organisations to operate in 'two spaces' simultaneously: the physical space and the electronic space. It highlights some of the issues of trust and identity that exist in virtual teams and argues that, due to certain barriers, only a small proportion of these teams reach a satisfactory level of performance. Using the evidence from two recent sets of studies, it highlights some of the barriers to effective virtual team working and demonstrates the critical importance of trust and social bonding to the functioning of such teams. It reports on the use of a 'Community of Practice' in a virtual team and argues that this may provide one mechanism for overcoming some of the barriers. Finally, it argues that many of the problems stem from a lack of understanding of the new geography of the information economy and that, rather than accepting the notion that 'geography no longer matters', continued efforts must be made to understand the relationship between the physical world in which we live and the electronic world of virtual team working.Virtual Teams, Communities of Practice, Globalisation, Teleworking, Electronic Space, Physical Space

Multi media applications in medical education : evaluation of an interactive CD-ROM on practical skin wound management for medical undergraduate learning

Thesis (M.S.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Surgery, 199