The Multimedia Telecare Demonstrator uses satellite communication to deliver video, sound and images over the Internet at high speed. Developed under the auspices of ESA's ARTES-1 and ARTES-4 Programmes, a commercial version of the service is due for launch next year.
Among the material delivered by the pilot is content from SilverPlatter Education's Functional Cardiac Imaging CD-ROM and training videos produced by Leicester University.
Using the Demonstrator, medical practitioners can contribute to an online diagnosis database linked to an image and video clip database running on the satellite uplink server. Users can then search the database to select a case, submit their diagnosis and receive an expert opinion along with all the other submitted diagnoses for that case.
According to Simon Chapman of Healthcare Works -- which managed the project's content -- satellite systems offer several advantages over standard Internet connections. "Satellite can be used to bypass Internet bottlenecks, and also offer true multicasting for distance learning, where you can broadcast live from one location to many different geographic locations in real-time," he said.
The commercial version of the service will have text based content, including MEDLINE abstracts and the full text of core medical titles. It is anticipated that a range of subscription prices and different service levels will be offered once the service is launched in the middle of 1999, while the price of hardware needed in addition to a multimedia PC will be around the ?500 mark.
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