[Technique and economics of first worldwide roentgen conference via public phone lines with the Medical Desktop-Conference and Integrated Services Digital Network]. / Technik und Okonomie der weltweit ersten Röntgenbesprechung über das öffentliche Fernsprechnetz mittels medizinischer Desktop-Konferenz und ISDN.

The introduction of the world's first Medical Desktop-Conference via public phone lines (ISDN-S2M) in spring 1994 for the weekly discussion of radiological findings with 25 orthopedic surgeons has proved the effectiveness of this system developed by the project BERMED. The use of standard hard- and software as well as ISDN are the most important factors to keep the system costs low. Technical advantages can be seen in the immediate, loss-free transmission of image and other patient-related data and in the integration of digital archives. Medical advantages are the 24-hour-availability of the radiologist and quality-control of the radiologists work. Practitioners and external hospitals can be tied closely to radiological service centers by using ISDNetwork.

Telemedicine in rural areas. Experience with medical desktop-conferencing via satellite.

Cooperation between physicians in hospitals in rural areas can be assisted by desktop-conferencing using a satellite link. For six weeks, medical desktop-conferencing was tested during daily clinical conferences between the Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, and the Medical Academy, Wroclaw. The communications link was provided by the German Telekom satellite system MCS, which allowed temporary connections to be established on demand by manual dialling. Standard hardware and software were used for videoconferencing, as well as software for medical communication developed in the BERMED project. Digital data, such as computed tomography or magnetic resonance images, were transmitted by a digital data channel in parallel to the transmission of analogue video and audio signals. For conferences involving large groups of people, hardware modifications were required. These included the installation of a video projector, adaptation of the audio system with improved echo cancellation, and installation of extra microphones. Learning to use an unfamiliar communication medium proved to be uncomplicated for the participating physicians.

[Communication and integration of medical documents for the teleconference use. An outcome of the BERMED project]. / Kommunikation und Integration medizinischer Dokumente für Telekonferenz-Anwendungen: Ein Ergebnis aus dem Projekt BERMED.

The collaboration between physicians is supported in the BERMED project by implementing the remote access to distributed patient data and the realisation of computer-based medical conferencing. This requires the integration of the multimedia data in form of a meta-patient record for our medical application systems. These applications are supported by a distributed information management promoting access to different information systems, imaging modalities and digital archival storage systems. The features of image processing are concerned with quantification, segmentation and 3-D-visualisation to obtain additional information. This paper gives an overview of the actual state of the teleconferencing system in radiology.