The prime minister Lyonchhoen Jigmi Y Thinley and the Indian ambassador to Bhutan Sudhir Vyas inaugurated the projects - SAARC telemedicine and rural telemedicine - during the ministry’s annual conference in Thimphu.
Tele-medicine is a part of clinical medicine where medical information is transferred via telephone, the Internet or other networks for the purpose of consulting and, sometimes, remote medical procedures or examinations. With this innovation, the health ministry hopes to improve access and quality health care by harnessing information technology. It will also ease and enable Bhutanese specialists to attend to patients in other parts of the country, say health officials.
“Through telemedicine, doctors and specialists will be able to keep in touch with their peers and keep up with medical advancement in technologies,” said the head of the ICT Unit at the ministry of health, Gaki Tshering.
Through the SAARC telemedicine project, the Thimphu national referral hospital will be connected to two super specialty hospitals in India, the Sanjay Gandhi post graduate institute of medical sciences (SGPGIMS) in Lucknow and the post graduate institute for medical education and research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh.
The project has two components: tele-consultations, where doctors and specialists can consult on cases with both institutes in India and share patient data; continuing medical education (CME), which will include joint academic meetings, transmitted on a weekly basis from SGPGIMS, and provision of customised CME from both sides.
With the rural telemedicine project, the health ministry hopes to strengthen telemedicine in the country. Through this project, 15 health facilities and basic health units (BHUs) will be provided with a laptop and other modern medical equipment, such as portable ECG machines and compatible software to interface the equipment. “These 15 rural sites will be facilitated and fully equipped by the end of this month,” said Gaki Tshering.
The real-time video conferencing will require an Internet bandwidth of 384 kbps, while the rural telemedicine will use the existing infrastructure of dial up internet connectivity. Costing Nu 27 million, the SAARC telemedicine project is supported by the telecommunications consultants India limited (TCIL).
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Pema Choezom
Quelle/Source: Kuensel, 18.04.2009
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