Towards Telemedical Centers

Abstract

Over the years, the developments in computing science have strongly influenced the way healthcare entities maintain processes aimed at delivering adequate medical services to patients. Hospital information systems operating within internal computer networks have drastically helped hospitals to improve the efficiency of providing services. They have allowed an immediate sharing of medical information in digital form between hospital employees in order to undertake clinical decisions in a quicker and better way, and to eliminate errors caused by lower quality paper information. The equivalent to these systems in exchanging information between distant medical professionals has become telemedicine. Telemedicine has created opportunities for a smooth cooperation between dispersed medical units and for automating the management of healthcare processes at the regional and national levels. In this chapter, the authors discuss an emerging trend towards developing and maintaining telemedical centers at the institutional and regional/national levels. The authors present functional and organizational requirements for such centers, as well as technical conditions relating to their implementation. Recommendations and statements presented herewith are based on the authors’ collective experience in building teleinformation systems for healthcare, which led to the development of the Wielkopolska Center of Telemedicine.