Design and implementation of a telemedicine system in Palestine

Abstract

The shortage of expert physicians and health-care providers in Palestine has created the need for a telemedicine system. The difficulty and the cost of transfer between Palestinian cities in the current political situation makes it important to use such systems. This paper describes the project's progress. The software and hardware required were developed in our laboratories. The software included modules for the preprocessing, enhancement, manipulation, compression and decompression of medical images. The hardware included the communication protocols, physical layer interface circuit and selection of a suitable medium for communication. In tests a radiograph was transmitted from one computer to a not her. The second and third phases will be to establish a communication link between Palestinian hospitals at different locations and to examine the realtime transfer of medical images.