1,282 research outputs found
MUTI Telehealth
For four years we have been iteratively evolving MUTI, a rural telehealth system, for hospitals and clinics in a remote rural part of the Eastern Cape in South Africa (Chetty, 2005; Chetty et al., 2003, 2004a; Maunder et al., 2006; Vuza, 2006; Vuza & Tucker, 2004). MUTI enables nurses and doctors to use a wireless Internet Protocol-based communication system to conduct patient referrals, request ambulance services, order supplies and generally keep in contact with one another. The primary community-oriented goal was to prevent unnecessary travel by sick patients from the clinic to the hospital, as transportation in these poverty-stricken and geographically dispersed areas is difficult and expensive for the local inhabitants. We hope that the system can enable nurses at the clinic to learn how to treat a wide range of problems locally by consulting with doctors that they normally do not meet or even speak with. We also hope that the system will lessen the workload for doctors at the hospital. As we expected, integrating new technologies into their everyday work lives is not straightforward or easy.Telkom, Cisco, Siemens, THRIP, SANPAD, IDR
The Quest for a Killer App for Opportunistic and Delay Tolerant Networks (Invited Paper)
Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) has attracted a lot of attention from the research community in recent years. Much work have been done regarding network architectures and algorithms for routing and forwarding in such networks. At the same time as many show enthusiasm for this exciting new research area there are also many sceptics, who question the usefulness of research in this area. In the past, we have seen other research areas become over-hyped and later die out as there was no killer app for them that made them useful in real scenarios. Real deployments of DTN systems have so far mostly been limited to a few niche scenarios, where they have been done as proof-of-concept ïŹeld tests in research projects. In this paper, we embark upon a quest to ïŹnd out what characterizes a potential killer applications for DTNs.
Are there applications and situations where DTNs provide
services that could not be achieved otherwise, or have potential to do it in a better way than other techniques? Further, we highlight some of the main challenges that needs to be solved to realize these applications and make DTNs a part of the mainstream network landscape
Implementation of medical imaging with telemedicine for the early detection and diagnoses of breast cancer to women in remote areas
Nowadays, the cancer topic has become a global concern. Furthermore, breast cancer persists to be the top leading cause of death to women population and the second cause of cancer death after the lung cancer globally. Various technologies and techniques have been searched, developed and studied over the years to detect the disease at the early stage; the early diagnosis saves many lives in both developed and developing countries. The detection of cancer through a screening process before its symptoms emerge increases the survival rate dramatically (Li, Meaney and Paulsen). Moreover, sufficient knowledge of the disease, qualified staff, accurate, appropriate treatment and diagnosis contribute to the successful cure of the disease; however, the cancer treatment is not affordable by many and sometimes not available to the very needy, and more precisely in developing countries. In this research, we aimed to explore the early detection of breast cancer using the new image compression algorithm: DYNAMAC, a compression tool that finds its basis in nonlinear dynamical systems theory; we implemented this algorithm through the D-transform, a digital sequence used to compress the digital media (Wang and Huang) & (Antoine, Murenzi and Vandergheynst). The goal is to use this method to analyze the average profile of diseased and healthy breast images obtained from a digital mammography to detect diseased tissues. After the detection of cancerous tumors, we worked to establish a remote care to women victims of breast cancer using the Telecommunication infrastructure through primarily Teleradiology and the Next Generation Internet (NGI) technology. Over the methods and techniques previously used in the area of medical imaging techniques, DYNAMAC algorithm is the most easily implemented along with its features that include cost saving in addition to best meeting the requirements of the breast imaging technology
Telerehabilitation: State-of-the-Art from an Informatics Perspective
Abstract to follow --please check bac
Telerehabilitation: State-of-the-Art from an Informatics Perspective
Rehabilitation service providers in rural or underserved areas are often challenged in meeting the needs of their complex patients due to limited resources in their geographical area. Recruitment and retention of the rural clinical workforce are beset by the ongoing problems associated with limited continuing education opportunities, professional isolation, and the challenges inherent to coordinating rural community healthcare. People with disabilities who live in rural communities also face challenges accessing healthcare. Traveling long distances to a specialty clinic for necessary expertise is troublesome due to inadequate or unavailable transportation, disability specific limitations, and financial limitations. Distance and lack of access are just two threats to quality of care that now being addressed by the use of videoconferencing, information exchange, and other telecommunication technologies that facilitate telerehabilitation. This white paper illustrates and summarizes clinical and vocational applications of telerehabilitation. We provide definitions related to the fields of telemedicine, telehealth, and telerehabilitation, and consider the impetus for telerehabilitation. We review the telerehabilitation literature for assistive technology applications, pressure ulcer prevention, virtual reality applications, speech-language pathology applications, seating and wheeled mobility applications, vocational rehabilitation applications, and cost-effectiveness. We then discuss external telerehabilitation influencers, such as the positions of professional organizations. Finally, we summarize clinical and policy issues in a limited context appropriate to the scope of this paper. Keywords: Telerehabilitation, Telehealth,Telemedicine, Telepractic
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Mobile consultant: Evaluation of additional services
As the need for mobility in the medical world increases, newer systems and applications came to light; many of them based on wireless and mobile networks. PDA based systems were presented in the past, capable of videoconferencing and transmitting high quality images between a roaming consultant and a fixed point in the hospital. These systems not only had desirable characteristics but also incorporated additional services that were found of value: paging, Voice over IP calling, Internet, email, intranet, patient record update, etc. This paper presents an engineering and clinical evaluation of those additional services based on both objective and subjective criteria. It concludes that such complementary services can be desirable as they increase personnel mobility, utilize the hospital resources more efficiently while at the same time increase productivity and decrease the cost of hardware and communications
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