Message-ID: <v0213051fad8ab065dc17@[196.20.30.2]> Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 12:33:04 +0100 From: Dr Eberhard W Lisse <mailto:el@LISSE.NA> Subject: Re: Traditional I.T. Before the Internet ?! To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
At 4:52 AM 5/4/96, Guy-Maurille Massamba wrote: >In a message dated 96-04-04 09:08:06 EST, aalkhali made a comment on the
>following:
>
>>> >Here is an idea for using the Internet to solve such a problem: the nurse
>>> >can consult an on-line "physician-on-duty" via the Internet, this
>>> >physician could be in the other side of the Globe.
>>>
>
>Here is aalkhali's comment:
>>> Come on, that doesn't even work in the US.
Actually, it was me :-)-O
>I think you're too fast in saying that it doesn't even work in the US. Some
>time ago (can't remember when it was), CNN reported a case of someone who was
>saved through the use of the internet.
[...]Ach, come off it. This is an *INDIVIDUAL* being saved by and *INDIVIDUAL* using a form of communication. (We have seen this by Internet, Ham Radio, CB or whatever.)
This is not the issue here.
Nowhere in the US does Internet based Computer Aided Consulting work. Nowhere!
They have spent fortunes in putting in television links for doctors for example in rural Texas to show patients to consultants in Lubbock. Little bang for the buck, by the way. But IP based stuff? Nowhere.
What you can do is to make access easier for rural doctors to resources such as libraries, abstracts, CDC's MMWR, discussion groups and the like. As in "You are not alone..."
There are very very few life threatening conditions where you can do with consultations. Mostly you need a plane. The other ones you can put on the ambulance for the scheduled run (if you can't get telephonic joy) and have them sorted out in the regional/national hospital where the specialized services and invertigations can be done. There is no substitute for a personal examination of a patient, email just won't do. And, for this you have the discussion groups.
ECGs? How many district hospitals have ECG machines in working order? And in case you were unaware, the main use is for Myocardial Infarction which is a rarity here. X-Rays? If we have a machine, we usually can read the X-Rays that our Technicians can produce. There is only very few ones that you really would like to have an urgent opinion, but these such as Cervial Spine, are not transmissable in a high enough resolution in our low cost environment to be readable on the other side.
el
-- Dr. Eberhard W. Lisse \ / Swakopmund State Hospital mailto:<el@lisse.NA> * | Resident Medical Officer Private Bag 5004 \ / +264 64 461503 (pager) 461005 (home) 461004 (fax) Swakopmund, Namibia ;____/ Zone/Domain Contact for the NA-DOM Vice-Chairman, Board of Trustees, Namibian Internet Development Foundation, an Association not for Gain. NAMIDEF is the Namibian Internet Service Provider.