Collaborative and Adaptive Framework for Telediagnosis and Prescriptions in Herbal Medicine

Herbal medicine has been an age long tradition for the treatment and cure of diseases globally. Previous researches on telediagnosis and prescriptions in orthodox medicine studied applications of modern technological devices which could improve health care services. However, there is yet to be an exhaustive study on the audio-visual technological framework for telediagnosis and prescription in herbal medicine.  Hence, the research developed a collaborative and adaptive framework for telediagnosis and prescriptions in herbal medicine. The framework and its system were developed consisting of multimedia features for videoconferencing; ability to record, capture and replay consultations; and capacity for editing, data compression and short message service amongst herbal tele-consultants. The system was experimented on Ladoke Akintola University of Technology hotspot network for a period of twenty one days in order to determine the system’s average packet loss rate and packet transmitted with five herbal tele-consultant nodes (node-1, node2, node3, node4 and node5). All nodes were allotted Internet Protocol addresses through which the intending herbal tele-consultant(s) could be connected to the telediagnosis videoconference session. Three performance metrics, System Reliability Index (SRI), System Degree of Relevance (SDR), and System Ease of Usage (SEU) were used to carry out subject to the evaluation of the system by administering one hundred questionnaires herbal consultants to harvest users’ perception of the system based on a Likert rating scale. The results obtained from telediagnosis session showed that the system recorded packet loss rates of 3.46, 3.13, 3.42, 3.61 and 3.36% at node1, node2, node3, node4 and node5, respectively. Also, the average packets of 3123.2, 5017.6, 5683.2, 4454.4 and 4249.6 bits were obtained at node1, node2, node3, node4 and node5, respectively. The summary of the subjected evaluation of the system indicate that the respondent’s response means of 3.20, 2.88. and 3.42 were obtained for the SRI, SDR and SEU, respectively on a rating scale of 1 to 5

Design and deployment of hybrid-telemedicine applications

With advances and availability of information and communication technology infrastructures in some nations and institutions, patients are now able to receive healthcare services from doctors and healthcare centers even when they are physically separated. The availability and transfer of patient data which often include medical images for specialist opinion is invaluable both to the patient and the medical practitioner in a telemedicine session. Two existing approaches to telemedicine are real-time and stored-and-forward. The real-time requires the availability or development of video-conferencing infrastructures which are expensive especially for most developing nations of the world while stored-and-forward could allow data transmission between any hospital with computer and telephone by landline link which is less expensive but with delays. We therefore propose a hybrid design of applications using hypermedia database capable of harnessing the features of real-time and stored-and-forward deployed over a wireless Virtual Private Network for the participating centers and healthcare provider

Melanoma Screening with Cellular Phones

Background. Mobile teledermatology has recently been shown to be suitable for teledermatology despite limitations in image definition in preliminary studies. The unique aspect of mobile teledermatology is that this system represents a filtering or triage system, allowing a sensitive approach for the management of patients with emergent skin diseases. Methodology/Principal Findings. In this study we investigated the feasibility of teleconsultation using a new generation of cellular phones in pigmented skin lesions. 18 patients were selected consecutively in the Pigmented Skin Lesions Clinic of the Department of Dermatology, Medical University of Graz, Graz (Austria). Clinical and dermoscopic images were acquired using a Sony Ericsson with a built-in two-megapixel camera. Two teleconsultants reviewed the images on a specific web application (http://www.dermahandy.net/default.asp) where images had been uploaded in JPEG format. Compared to the face-to-face diagnoses, the two teleconsultants obtained a score of correct telediagnoses of 89% and of 91.5% reporting the clinical and dermoscopic images, respectively. Conclusions/Significance. The present work is the first study performing mobile teledermoscopy using cellular phones. Mobile teledermatology has the potential to become an easy applicable tool for everyone and a new approach for enhanced self-monitoring for skin cancer screening in the spirit of the eHealth program of the European Commission Information for Society and Media

An Internet-Based Telemedicine System in Nigeria

Telecommunication technologies are being used to change the healthcare industry in unprecedented and irreversible ways. These technologies are enabling delivery of healthcare to remotely placed patients and facilitating information exchange between generalists and specialists. For many decades now, the use of advanced telecommunications and information technologies has been investigated in an effort to improve healthcare. In particular, the focus has been centered on telemedicine. Telemedicine has been defined as the delivery of healthcare and the exchange of health information across distances, including all medical activities: making diagnosis, treatment, prevention, education and research (Craig, 1999). Telemedicine is also defined as the use of telecommunication technologies to provide medical information and services (Perednia & Allen, 1995). It may be as simple as two health professionals discussing a patient\u27s case over the telephone, or as sophisticated as using satellite technology to broadcast a consultation between healthcare centres in two countries using videoconferencing equipment. The American Telemedicine Association defines telemedicine as the use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communication for health and education of the patient or healthcare providers and for the purpose of improving patient care (ATA, 2001). Wootton (1996) considered telemedicine as a process, rather than a technology: telemedicine connects patients and healthcare professional in a chain of care

Mobile cell-phones (M-phones) in telemicroscopy: increasing connectivity of isolated laboratories

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The development of modern information telecommunication (ITC) technology and its use in telemedicine plays an increasingly important role in facilitating access to some diagnostic services even to people living in the most remote areas. However, physical and economical constraints in the access to broad band data-transmission network, still represent a considerable obstacle to the transmission of images for the purpose of tele-pathology.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Indifferently using m-phones of different brands, and a variety of microscopic preparations, images were taken without the use of any adaptor simply approaching the lens of the mobile cell phone camera to the ocular of common optical microscopes, and subsequently sent via Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS) to distant reference centres for tele-diagnosis. Access to MMS service was reviewed with specific reference to the African information communication technology (ICT) market.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Images of any pathologic preparation could be captured and sent over the mobile phone with an MMS, without being limited by appropriate access to the internet for transmission (i.e. access to broad-band services). The quality of the image was not influenced by the brand or model of the mobile-phone used, but only by its digital resolution, with any resolution above 0.8 megapixel resulting in images sufficient for diagnosis.</p> <p>Access to MMS services is increasingly reaching remote disadvantaged areas. Current penetration of the service in Africa was mapped appearing already available in almost every country, with penetration index varying from 1.5% to 92.2%.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The use of otherwise already widely available technologies, without any need for adaptors or otherwise additional technology, could significantly increase opportunities and quality diagnostics while lowering costs and considerably increasing connectivity between most isolated laboratories and distant reference center.</p

The Role of Image Quality in Telehealth: Adoption Challenges in the Subcontinent

Background: The purpose of this paper is to explore the underlying challenges in the telehealth environment in India and Pakistan that impede the delivery of high-quality images between a patient and health care professional. Method: An exploratory study was conducted among healthcare professionals in India and Pakistan to assess their perceptions regarding image quality, which is used for the diagnosis and treatment decision making. This cross-sectional qualitative study used semi-structured interviews with healthcare professionals in both India and Pakistan. Results: The interviews were analyzed using a thematic analysis, which revealed three major themes. These themes being: ICT infrastructure and connectivity, expertise of persons taking images, and multiple transmission degrading image quality. Conclusions: Findings indicate that in both countries, the main underlying challenge is the lack of consistency in the network infrastructure between urban, rural and remote areas. Additionally, training patients to use hand-held devices to take high-quality images could hold the key to improving the reliability and, consequently, the quality of images transmitted between patients and health care professionals

Emergency TeleOrthoPaedics m-health system for wireless communication links

For the first time, a complete wireless and mobile emergency TeleOrthoPaedics system with field trials and expert opinion is presented. The system enables doctors in a remote area to obtain a second opinion from doctors in the hospital using secured wireless telecommunication networks. Doctors can exchange securely medical images and video as well as other important data, and thus perform remote consultations, fast and accurately using a user friendly interface, via a reliable and secure telemedicine system of low cost. The quality of the transmitted compressed (JPEG2000) images was measured using different metrics and doctors opinions. The results have shown that all metrics were within acceptable limits. The performance of the system was evaluated successfully under different wireless communication links based on real data