Telemedicine for Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City

The date for this important, high-priority event was Saturday, October 2nd.

Sponsored by Intel, this one-day Forum was a joint effort between International Medical Initiatives (IMI), the Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy, and Quang Trung Software City, under the technical support of our main associate, GE Healthcare, along with Saigon Institute of Information Technology (SaigonTech).

Agenda

The agenda included presentations - "Current State of Health Information Technology in the US and China," "Delivering Excellent Healthcare to the Masses" and "Social, Political, and Infrastructure Planning for Telemedicine" - then a live a tele-radiology demonstration with St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital and a live demo of Web-based tele-radiology presented by IMI, Houston Medical Imaging Center and SaigonTech.

Guests

Speaking at this important seminar was Dr. John Joe, IMI Corp General Manager for Community Health Care, and a noted expert in the field of Medical Informatics. Also speaking was Mr. Van-Sau Nguyen, IMI Country Manager for Vietnam.

Important health care officials and medical doctors from across Vietnam attended the Forum.

The Demonstrations from TelMed Asia Forum 2004

Demonstrators (IMI, Houston Medical Imaging Center, Saigon Institute of Information Technology [SaigonTech] and GE Healthcare) for the three demonstrations (below) used the existing infrastructure and SaigonTech and GE Healthcare technology and equipment.

Demo 1: Live, Interactive Tele-radiology between HCM City and Houston, Texas

A Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS) Web server (in this case, the open source, “freeware” PacsOne Basic Edition from Mr. Xiaohui Li at Rainbowfish Software [USA]) with a static Internet Protocol (IP) address was physically located at the auditorium of QTSC. There were nine patient folders in this Web server database. These were fictional patients with fictional names provided by GE Healthcare. Each patient folder had one or more studies (or exams). Each study/exam had one or more series of diagnostic images. The types of modalities included Computerized Tomography (CT), X-Ray, digital X-Ray, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), one endoscopy study, one ophthalmology study, and Ultrasound. The number of images in each series ranged from just one to a couple dozen images. There were no reports associated with any of these images.

At precisely the same time, Dr. John Joe (IMI), standing on the stage in the auditorium of QTSC, and Dr. Mark Skolkin (St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital), in Houston, Texas, USA, each accessed the PacsOne Web server database, simultaneously selected the same patient, opened the same study folder of that patient, and opened the same series of images for that patient. Then Dr. Joe showed the audience in HCM City the radiology image on the LCD screen display, and Dr. Skolkin an audio report on the series the whole time by cellular phone. In this way the two medical professionals interacted and discussed the patient, study, series and image being simultaneously viewed.

This demonstration showed the functionality of a PACS Web Server, the telecommunications infrastructure requirements for such Web-based tele-radiology, and the capability of live, real-time discussions, coaching, training and consulting between two locations on opposite sides of the world.

Demo 2: "Tele-radiology over the Web"

In this demonstration, radiologist Dr. Randall Stenoien, located with his laptop and an Internet connection at the auditorium at Quang Trung Software City, accessed his own database in the offices of Houston Medical Imaging Center in Houston, Texas, USA. Dr. Stenoien opened two studies and gave audience members reports on the images in those two studies, all over the Web, in real-time, through the Quang Trung Software City's frame relay connection.

This demonstration showed the real possibilities of Web-based tele-radiology, along with tele-archiving and tele-consultation and reporting, connecting Vietnam with the US and all countries in between via the Internet.

Demo 3: “Three Client PCs and Web Server”

Additionally, throughout the day of the Forum in the lobby of the auditorium at QTSC, three client PCs accessed a Web Server over a LAN, simulating a Web connection. Each client PC had MS Internet Explorer, and MS Netmeeting providing video and audio.

There were just under fifty patient folders in this Web Server Database. These were fictional demo patients with fictional names from GE Healthcare (as above). In this case, some images were accompanied by associated reports.

This demonstration showed how GE Healthcare’s Centricity Web application allows the client PCs to act as stand-alone diagnostic radiology workstations, how tele-radiology can be interactive (with both voice and audio), and the relationship between client PCs and servers in Web-based telemedicine.

Further Information

For further information please contact the Project Manager, Dr. Luu Nguyen, at luu_nguyen@imi-corp.net.

Also, you may visit the IMI Telemedicine pages or IMI Tele-Radiology pages.