Introduction
Spanning 41 Ministry of Health centers
across the country, East and West Malaysia, the Teleconsultation
Network put in place by WorldCare allows for peer to
peer transmission of film-based radiological images
as well as scanned paper documents, voice annotations,
digital picture images and ECG scans. While most of
the teleconsultation studies would be sent to one of
four Ministry referral centers, the network allows referrals
to be made from any one of the 41 sites to another.
Believed
to be the first nationwide teleconsultation network
in the world, WorldCare managed and operated this network
for a period of 30 months beginning April 2000. The
first 7 months were used for implementation and network
commissioning and the Malaysian Teleconsultation Network
was fully operational in November 2000.
Malaysia's
Teleconsultation Network was powered by the US FDA approved
OpenMed™ Manager switching matrix, while OpenMed™
Capture serves as the platform for capture and acquisition
of medical modalities. Viewing and reporting of teleconsults
is done thru the Web based OpenMed™ Viewer, allowing
for geographical barriers to be broken. Hi resolution
xrays, MRIs and CT scans are sent thru the industry
standard DICOM protocols to the OpenMed™ Radiology
application for viewing on 2k x 2.5k hi resolution diagnostic
workstations.
|
