Realtime Telemedicine in Pediatric Cardiology

Point-of-care echocardiography is a very common technique in neonatal intensive care units, but it is often hampered by the lack of on-site specialists. The effectiveness of this procedure is directly related to the quality of the collaboration between the specialists involved, which can be influenced by the convenience of training new specialists in remote districts. In this study we report the results of the REMOTE project, which studied the feasibility of a real-time echocardiographic image transmission system that allows direct interaction between the doctors involved; the project adopts an innovative, low-cost, cross-platform and open-source strategy that enables neonatal ultrasound consultative services in remote districts and secondary care centers. We analyze the results from two perspectives: clinical and technological. From the clinical point of view, we report the preliminary results of our experimentation involving 42 patients and two hospitals in Sardinia, Italy: a tertiary hospital, with senior expertise in pediatric cardiology, and a secondary hospital with a neonatal unit. From the technological perspective, we describe the overall system model and the motivation of its design.

@Article{TFCBLGMNT13,
  author       = {Triunfo, R. and Frexia, F. and Cabras, F. and Buttu, C. and Lecca, V. and Gessa, S. and Montis, S. and Neroni, P. and Tumbarello, R.},
  title        = {Realtime Telemedicine in Pediatric Cardiology},
  journal      = {eTELEMED 2013, The Fifth International Conference on eHealth, Telemedicine, and Social Medicine},
  pages        = {320 --326},
  month        = {february},
  year         = {2013},
  publisher    = {IARIA},
  keywords     = {real-time telemedicine, tele-ultrasound, COTS technologies, pediatric cardiology},
  issn         = {2308-4359},
  isbn         = {978-1-61208-252-3},
  url          = {https://publications.crs4.it/pubdocs/2013/TFCBLGMNT13},
}