Showing papers on "Telemedicine published in 1979"

Provider attitudes toward STARPAHC: a telemedicine project on the Papago reservation.

Abstract: Space Technology Applied to Rural Papago Advanced Health Care (STARPAHC), is a large-scale telemedicine project, sponsored jointly by the Indian Health Service (IHS), NASA, and the Papago tribe, and in operation on the Papago Indian Reservation outside Tucson Arizona, for the past two years. STARPAHC uses a mobile health unit (MHU), staffed by non-M.D. providers and linked by two-way television, radio, and remote telemetry to an IHS hospital up to 100 miles away, to make medical care available in remote areas of the reservation. Over a two-year-period beginning in January, 1975, 47 individual providers, including 21 physicians, were interviewed, at five intervals, to determine their receptivity to and acceptance of telemedicine; because of staff turnover, not all providers were interviewed at each different interval. Data suggests that television equipment was considered costly and in some cases inconvenient to M.D. providers; it was not considered always essential for providers to be able to diagnose and treat patients. The major problems providers cited were the unreliability of equipment and the time required for television consultations. The major benefit cited was improved access to health care for a population not previously receiving such care near their homes. Non-M.D. providers considered the link they were provided to physicians via television and voice communications from remote areas to be a major benefit.

Radiologic consultation to a remote Canadian hospital using Hermes spacecraft.

Abstract: Access to medical services in north Canada is limited by geography, climate, communication and transportation. A geostationary spacecraft, Hermes, was used to provide dependable, high-quality communication between a remote nursing station, a base hospital and a health science centre. Teleradiology formed an important component of the telemedicine services. Remote supervision of radiography and fluoroscopy was made possible; consultation services were shown to be 90% effective.

An Operational Slow Scan Telemedicine System in a Remote Area

Abstract: Delivery of adequate health care in undeveloped countries and to remote areas of developed countries continues to be one of the major problems of our century. Several solutions to the problem are being attempted including non-physician providers and physician incentives. For the past twenty years many people, especially in North America, have been studying the utilization of modern communications technology to assist and augment health care delivery systems. Studies have been made testing the feasibility of live color television, black and white television and other technologies. Although there is no question that many systems can assist in health care delivery most of these systems are expensive to install and to operate. An appropriate communications system to assist health care delivery must be reliable, easy to operate and relatively inexpensive.