Partner und Internationale Organisationen
(Englisch)
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I Italtel, CH Ascom Tech, B Belgacom, UK GPT, GR Intracom SA, GR NTUA
GR OTE, F Philips LEP, UK Philips PRL, CH Swiss PttGR Syndesis, I Telecom Italia
IRL Teltec, CH TMR,
CH University Hospital Basel
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Abstract
(Englisch)
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1. Introduction
In the healthcare business, it is very important to have simultaneous access to patient data such as medical history (anamnesis), case data (e.g. laboratory data), various physicians' reports, images such as radiology, endoscopy and histological findings, administrative data for management, accounting and logistics, and so on. A further aspect is that remote monitoring of the patient's status (vital functions, laboratory results or findings, visual observation, etc.) is becoming more and more important as patient surveillance technology develops.
Moreover, the efficiency of business processes at healthcare institutions, particularly hospitals, tends to be suboptimal: patients are often multiply admitted to different clinical departments reports, medical images (x-rays, histological images, endoscopic stills, video clips, ERCP etc.) and patient records are exchanged physically rather than electronically across departmental borders and between different hospitals. Medical data, images and videos are often kept in clinical departments, an interdisciplinary access to these data is rendered impossible. These inefficiencies call for significant changes in healthcare management as well as in the approach to healthcare itself.
2. Objectives
The objective of the healthcare trial in EXODUS is to demonstrate and deploy B-ISDN with IN functions in a set of applications within the University Hospital of Basel using mobile multimedia and telemonitoring as basic user services.
TCP/IP is used over the EXODUS network, providing access to distant networks.
The applications are demonstrated and used in the Gastrological Research and Investigation Center of the University Hospital of Basel. This arrangement permits all healthcare applications to be run in a real hospital environment without violating patients' security (all our patients are volunteers in clinical trials). Each patient or healthy volunteer may either agree or refuse to have his or her medical data used in the EXODUS trial.
The graphic user interface (GUI) of all healthcare applications are self-explanatory and are formulated in German only. A user's guide in English is intended as an introduction for the partners of the EXODUS consortium
Application in the Gastrological Research and Investigation Centre (GRIC)
3. The HC trial platform at the University Hospital Basel
3 Hospital Bed Units (HBU) are connected to the EXODUS network.
The HBU is a PC customized especially for the HC trial which is equipped with special hardware and software features allowing it to be connected to specific laboratory equipment via an RS 232 interface or image producing source (video and stills) via composite or S-Video. There is also the possibility of using file transfer via Ethernet to capture DICOM files directly from the server or of using special file transfer from the X-ray unit. The HBUs are moveable terminals which can be transferred to other bedrooms, examination rooms or the patient's location.
1 FBT acting as a Fixed Broadband Terminal used simultaneously as a router to the hospital's LAN.
The connection of the HBU to the clinical, data, image and video server is established by using 'TCP/IP over EXODUS'.
On the HBU's the healthcare applications are installed, while the server is equipped with the Microsoft
SQL-Database, which contains all the relevant information. The server is attached to the LAN so that
the clients (HBU's) can retrieve DB-information via ODBC calls, which are transported within
TCP/IP. Upon start-up the HBU's need to retrieve some start-up information from the server. The HBU's allow the user to retrieve any information stored on the DB (x-ray's histological images, video sequences, lab-results, etc.). Furthermore they offer the user the possibility to communicate with another HBU (voice) and exchange documents.
4. Public demonstration of the Health Care trial at the Orbit98 in Basel:
This project has been demonstrated successfully at the Orbit98 in Basel in the AMUSE (Advanced Multimedia Services for Residential Users) project, using a ATM network (hybrid fibre coax) via the cable network of the city of Basel (Balcab).
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