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Telemedicine aims to
reduce the number of patient referrals from smaller hospitals and community
health centers (send sites) to the larger hospitals (receive sites), by giving
the medical staff the necessary support they need.
This will also be of a great benefit to patients who will not need to
travel great distances, but will be able to obtain the necessary treatment in
their own hospital. King Edward VIII and Edendale hospital have been selected in
KwaZulu-Natal as receive sites. Dialogue and images are sent via ISDN lines from
send sites to the receive site where a diagnosis can be done.
Send sites can also communicate with each other.
An
examination can done in real time, that is whilst the patient is being examined
the doctor at the send site can converse with the doctor at the receive site who
is also able to see images of the patient.This is ideal for emergency situations.Where the situation is not as serious the images can be
saved and sent by email and examined at a later stage. Institutions have been supplied with the necessary equipment
needed, which includes: a PC with large monitor, a large screen TV and a camera.
TeleUltrasound
Seven send sites have
been selected for TeleUltrasound, these are: G. J. Crookes hospital, KwaDabeka
Community Health Centre, Mahatma Gandhi hospital, Osindisweni hospital, Phoenix
Community Health Centre, Port Shepstone hospital and Stanger hospital with King
Edward VIII hospital being the receive site.
All the equipment has been installed at the hospitals and training has
been carried out. Ms. Prem Moodley
at King Edward VIII hospital has been chosen to oversee the Tele-Ultrasound
project in KwaZulu-Natal and to promote the use of the equipment in the
institutions. This project is
slowly developing but as is the case with most new projects, especially when
using new and unknown technology there are teething problems which has caused
the progress to be less than satisfactory.
TeleOphthalmology
Christ the King hospital and Madadeni hospital have been selected as send sites for Tele-
Ophthalmology with both Edendale hospital and King Edward acting as receive
sites. Edendale hospital is also involved with the “Fight-for Sight” Tele-Ophthalmology project, which links
to National and International hospitals. A
decision has been made to pool the resources in order to offer a more effective
service to patients. The equipment
has not been installed at King Edward VIII and further training needs to take
place before Tele-Ophthalmology can become fully operative. |
HEALTH KWAZULU-NATAL