Telemedicine System Using a High-Speed Network: Past, Present, and Future

There is no doubt that telecommunication saves a great deal of time and expense when exchanging information, and recent technological advances have increased its popularity in business and educational applications. Telemedicine is a rapidly developing application of clinical medicine in which medical information is transferred via the Internet or another communication network for the purpose of consultations, and sometimes also for remote medical procedures or examinations. A telemedicine system can also be applied to medical education. Many doctors and medical students could benefit from telementoring and tele-education based on videoconferencing systems. However, telemedicine in general has not yet become popular in clinical practice or medical education. In our university, we have used a telemedicine system to educate doctors and medical students since 2003. Since our first telemedical conference with Kyushu University Hospital on February 12, 2003 when we have regularly performed telemedical conferences. Here we introduce a general methodology for telemedicine, our experiences of medical conferencing using telemedicine, and future possible directions

International Telemedicine Activities in Thailand

The development of information and communication technology has had a dramatic impact on people’s lives, including medical matters. The Internet has made it possible for telemedicine to be implemented with excellent image quality at low cost; such telemedicine was first applied between Japan and South Korea in 2002. The technology is not restricted to advanced countries: it can also be applied in developing nations, and it has expanded rapidly to other parts of Asia and beyond. In 2005 Thailand became the seventh country to be associated with the Telemedicine Development Center of Asia (TEMDEC). As of 2017, TEMDEC operates 144 programs in Thailand, mainly in endoscopy (55, 38%) and surgery (40, 28%): 17 hospitals or medical institutions are active members, and there are 165 telemedicine connections. Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University was the first participant; it has 71 telemedicine connections; King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital became the second participant; it has 52 such connections. These two hospitals account for 74.5% (123/165) of all telemedicine activities in Thailand. Compared with outside Bangkok, the number of telemedicine connections is 14 times (154/11) greater and the number of such connections per hospital is 10 times (15.4/1.6) greater in the capital-even though the number of hospitals is only 1.4 times (10/7) greater in Bangkok. To efficiently meet local needs, we strongly hope that telemedicine will expand into rural parts of Thailand and into more medical specialties through ongoing technological development