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TeleMedicineTechnologies are resulting in a stupendous revolution even of a superior nature, when compared to the 19th century industrial revolution. In the light of these developments, the European Union (Bangemann report June 1994) made a resolution relating to openness of the European market to the networks of other regions of the world and the guarantee for equal access, the adjustment of international, long distance and leased line tariffs to affordable rates. The advent of Telematics, featuring the alliance between both the computer and the telecommunication.
More still, the special session of the G7 countries held in Brussels in Feb. 1995 digressed on the issues of telecommunication networks and infrastructures, identifying Health sector among the six sub-pilot projects, with international impact and orientation.
This initiative is bringing to the focal point the long-standing and strong tradition of international co-operation in the field of health care. As Telematics derivative, Telemedicine is defined as the practice of medical care using interactive audio, visual and data communications; including medical care delivery, consultation, diagnosis and treatment, as well as education and the transfer of medical data. Telehealth is the management and support to national and international health, by interactive audio, visual and data communications. This includes the delivery of healthcare; professional consultations; the access to centres and repositories of knowledge, applications and literature; the management of health care institutions; the education of the public; basic and continuous education; surveillance of diseases and services; emergency health needs and hazards; the secure and the access to and transfer of health data; and research. Telemedicine is emerging as a mainstay of the global information society. While the scope of this human invention is being recognised as a global one, their benefits should be at everyone's disposal including those in the least favoured nations. This realm of thought underlines the necessity to associate new European countries to the new telemedicine era and its benefits. It is thus imperative to establish strategies, which will enable the individual countries to draw on and learn from the experiences of others. This will obviously reflect on the worldwide collaboration between health professionals as well as between health authorities. As a matter of example, a number of efforts have been made to link the developing countries to the industrialised world by satellite infrastructure. Both the HELINA and the COPINE networks are stimulating and bringing these developments to the awareness of people in Africa. The EPIAIM project launched by the European Commission in the Latin America has concluded that both Latin America and Europe can work together. Nowadays, modern Telemedicine is associated to the cost effective broadband technologies, accompanied by the multi-media oriented application and the remote control of local medical instrumentation. The knowledge bank, which is available in the EU, when brought to the world interface, will invoke a lot of interest to invest in the emerging market. |
