Abstract

INTRODUCTION

POSSIBLE USE OF TELEMEDICINE

USE OF TELEMEDICINE IN OCCUPATIONAL DERMATOLOGY

THE QUALITY OF IMAGES TO BE USED IN TELEDERMATOLOGY

CONCLUSIONS

Discussion
Board

Research Institute of Hygiene and Occupational Pathology, located in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, is responsible for environmental and occupational health in six regions of European Part of Russia. The activity of Institute covers the area of 450000 sq. km with total population 10.1 mln. It explains the hardships that occur in providing the population with qualified medical services in the field of occupational pathology. One of the possible approaches to provide patients from distant areas with qualified help of occupational pathologists could be telemedical consultation. It was decided that telemedical consultation in occupational dermatology should be the most important for implementation now. Key characteristics of the implemented system of telemedicine were defined as following: 1) ability to capture and transfer high resolution images (not less than 1 mln. pixels) with high color fidelity; 2) ability to transfer official documents with proper authorization in secure way; 3) ability to function at rather low transfer speed -28.8 kbps (that means use of still images rather than videoconference); 4) possibility to use on-line expert systems to evaluate the risk of occupational skin disease in individual worker. Patients from distant areas should have the possibility to be consulted by leading Moscow specialists. Now the first parts of the system begin functioning regularly, the end of implementation of main part of the system is planned for 2000-2001.

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Poster Number PAtikhomirov0639
Keywords: telemedicine, dermatology, Russian regions, implementation