TETI

The TETI project is an initiative of LBMI

More information at http://teti.lbmi.org

In an attempt to contribute our quota in making the Global information society a reality, The Laboratory for Biomedical Informatics, The Netherlands (LBMI), is initiating the TETI, a Multi-national Telemedicine and Tele-Health pilot project.
At the time of announcement of the TETI project at the Krakow July 2003 Conference [http://www.pro-access.org/conference/], only Czech Rep. Poland and The Netherlands were on the list of the prospective partners. In the meantime, the ideology has spread across both Hungary and Slovakia, visiting prospective partners and digressing on the issues of the project. While adopting the same pattern as in Czech Republic, efforts were made to reach and link up with the pioneers of Telemedicine and Medical Informatics in order to create a strong national backbone and platform for the TETI project.
Apart from the usual Public Health service establishments, such as the hospital departments and the University Research centres and organisations, The TETI will in each country involve the Telecom Infrastructure providers and possibly Telematics establishments and particularly the defending organs of the society, such as the Ambulance and the Fire Brigade Services on the one hand and the Military Services (the medical departments) including the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Police on the other hand. This is a redirection from the usual practice.

The project will address the user requirements, the set-up of equipment and infrastructure, the demonstration, evaluation and dissemination of the results of the initiative. Prior to the commencement of the project, it is imperative to conduct a preliminary field study based on the COPINE (ESA/WHO) International standard. This LBMI consultation service will investigate the state of the existing resources (informatics, telecom, human and financial resources) in order to assess the readiness of the partners in the PAC’s to embark on Telemedical Consultation Services.

While addressing the priorities, the need to optimise the existing resources as well as the possibility of having access to other telemedical services and network will be addressed. A business plan will be adopted for the eventual operation of these transcontinental medical services.
This will be a platform for the development of new applications tailored to meet the user requirements. This pilot project will start with the basic principles of telemedicine; i.e. teleconsultation and will further develop to include some specialist applications including telepathology, telecardiology and teleradiology. Some attention will be paid to health care telematics, including telematics applications for the emergency services (teleambulance and teletraumatology). The preliminary LBMI field study is recommended prior to the start of the project. It is envisaged that the first phase of the project will be centred on demonstration of the available services among the consortium members and The Netherlands. It is envisaged that each country will be represented by a number of available Tele-consultation services currently being practised in the country. At the initial stage a matchmaking strategy will be embarked upon in order to link one Institute to the corresponding counterpart in the Netherlands. During the course of the demonstration exercise, a row would be created and set apart for the individual government spectators on the one hand and particularly for the representatives of the general public on the other hand. Undoubtedly, this demonstration phase would result into the creation of a melting pot of culture, whereby the Telemedicine language of Instruction would be as popular as the common household gadgets. According to the strategic plan laid down, The European Parliament, which is already hinted of the eventual take off of the project, would also be invited to witness the European Multi-national Telemedicine Demonstration exercise.

Overview of the TETI project

Taking the initiative (The Netherlands, Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia) Following the successful completion of this demonstration phase, the project will stretch wings across borders within Western Europe as to include participants from different member states of the European Union. The demonstration phase is expected to prepare the ground for the take off of the unanimous global EU Telemedicine endeavour.

General objectives

The TETI aims at contributing to the current modernisation of the Primary health care developments in the pre-accession countries. It will focus on the implementation of modern informatics system throughout the mentioned States and create strategies for the Telematics support of an existing and newly developing heath care system in the countries. This initiative will feature among other things the tele-consultation between the rural areas and the metropolitan centres within the individual Countries on the one hand and between the individual countries as a whole and the Western Europe.

As a matter of example, pathologists in Poland will link up and establish teleconsultation service with their Dutch counterparts. The Dutch Pathologists will on the other hand deliver medical services across the broadband communication network. This teleconsultation service will feature for example the transmission of images of pathological cases and the multimedia discussion (Video Conferencing) on the cases at hand. During surgical operations, it will be possible for the distant pathologist consultant to manipulate a digital microscope and do diagnosis. The laboratory standard digital microscope as basis for Telepathology configuration designed and developed by LBMI will be further adapted in collaboration with the prospective members of the consortium for industrial packaging.

Work content

First, the focus will be put on the needs of the aforementioned pre-accession countries on national basis, in order to identify centres that can be interconnected to make up the backbone of this multi-national telemedicine network. In addition to this, the proposed study will also focus on the connection of the network to international networks or sites in order to guarantee that the communications in this field will be as open as possible.

The work content relative to both the PAC’s and The Netherlands will adopt the following 5-phase model:

Global analysis of the user requirements
Translation of the user requirements into functional specifications
Building the demonstrator
Validating the demonstrator (verification and demonstration)
Embarking on Exploitation plans

Benefit

From every day practical experience it is not erroneous to point out that the benefit and advantages of Telematics and or Telemedicine will be extremely meaningful when the scope of the technology is widened and stretched to a broader dimension.

Concluding remarks

The expertise from The Netherlands and or Europe would be transferred to the PAC’s and thus make the cultural and scientific ties between the two regions stronger and at the same time paving way to the development and expansion of the modern industry. There are long standing connections with PAC’s and these can be further developed to the benefit of the EU in general. Furthermore, the project will pave way to the amelioration of telecommunication links between The PAC’s and the rest of the EU and will greatly influence the consultation of the European telemedical services from abroad. It will satisfy the European Union policy of integrating the Pre-accession countries into the global information society, which is partly the issue of the European 3rd and 4th Framework Programmes. More still, and very important, the project will demonstrate the feasibility of Telemedical services for the PAC’s, including trial of services in real-life circumstances on the one hand and create the grounds to train researchers in the PAC’s in the use of methods and tools for advanced communication technologies and tele-matics that could become European standards and basic to the future European information infrastructure on the other hand. Furthermore, the Framework will forster and strengthen the already existing economic ties among the participating countries.
While recognising the fact that the essence of life is pivoted on two main items namely Economy and Health, the TETI project will prove to be an outstanding and incontestable ground to fulfil this ideology. It is therefore necessary to highlight Telemedicine as one of the most important areas where both The Central European pre-accession countries and The West can work together for the benefit of mankind.