Telemedicine applications in ENT - The Tubingen and Leipzig videoconference example

"Telemedicine" is a major new development with great potential for improvin g health care delivery. It therefore affects each department in medicine. T here is a great deal of telemedicine activity around the world. However, th e term telemedicine is not clear. It describes all forms of medical informa tion, transferred from a relevant distance by an electronic transfer media. An essential condition for communication is the intelligibility between tr ansmitter and receiver. Because of different transmitting technologies and networks in distinct countries, towns, or even academic institutions, satis factory contact is not possible. In the last decade, the demand for worldwide audiovisual data transmission has led to the standardization of telecommunication media. Therefore it is no longer necessary to transport medical data (or even patients) by convent ional manners, e.g., post car, or aircraft. Telemedicine for diagnosis and management can be bidirectional in real-time, long-distance videoconferenci ng, in which the patient consults a specialist located at the remote site, or it can be the transmission of either real-time or prerecorded images and data to a remote expert, as in teleradiology or telepathology. Another app lication is the use of videoconference systems in the course of meetings. T he remote specialist has the opportunity to take part in the session, e.g., with a lecture. Furthermore, the remote specialist can demonstrate special operative techniques for teleteaching purposes, some of which may be speci alities of the particular medical unit, e.g., operation in open NMR, telema nipulation,or telerobotic procedures. In this paper,we describe the use and benefit of a videoconference between the departments of otolaryngology and head and neck surgery of the Universi ties of Tubingen and Leipzig by means of an "ISDN-based videoconference sys tem". During the meeting,the "operating course for reconstructive surgery i n the head and neck", the practicability, reliability, costs and quality we re determined and compared with other technologies for audiovisual data tra nsfer.