IT support in emergency areas A tool for telemedicine support in emergency areas International manager Claus Duedal Pedersen Danish Centre for Health Telematics

Agenda History The WHO idea The collaboration server Test case

The development of the collaboration server Started in the PICNIC project where the basic idea was developed First technical server was developed in the ciTTis project Installed as a running service in the Danish Health Data Network as part of the MedCom project Next version and introduction of a Structured Reporting Tool is developed in the Baltic eHealth project

Basic idea This project is a part of the WHO on-going work to find new ways of increasing the efficiency of the response to large emergency situations. The idea is to create a telemedicine response set-up that can be launched in disaster areas and that afterwards can be transferred to the local authorities and be part of the reconstruction of the local healthcare service.

Telemedicine as a part of emergency response The collaboration server can be used for three purposes: –as a tool for online access to specialist resources for emergency workers in the disaster area 24/7/365 – as part of a emergency telemedicine tool-kit –as a communication tool for the local health care organisations after the immediate help – as a telemedicine tool for the reconstruction phase. –as a communication tool for e.g. second opinion services or online specialist assistance after the reconstruction.

Development The development of the response set-up is on-going in a number of projects. The Danish Centre for Health Telematics assists WHO in the development by providing a small part of the technical solution and assists with practical issues in a pilot project.

The collabortion server A ”MSM” for on- and offline non- structured communication between health care professionals Based on open source components A simple user interface that can easily be translated into any language Can run on very low band-width e.g. over satellites

Collabortion server

The first test case In co-operation with WHO in Sri Lanka the collaboration server will in July 2006 be made available as a communication platform for hospitals and healthcare staff in a part of Sri Lanka The collaboration server will be used as a test case of the general concept in the local healthcare system Next step will be to add second opinion service between hospitals or to specialists in Europe. The collaboration server project is a part of the reconstruction of the healthcare service after the Tsunami.

First test case II The server will be hosted in Denmark for the pilot testing, but if successful the server can be transferred to either WHO or Sri Lanka If needed the collaboration server will be translated into the local language (It is now available in Swedish, Danish, Estonian and German).

Perspectives In this project the general concept will be tested – new and better technical solutions might have to be developed The objective is to get a better understanding of how and when telemedicine solutions can be introduced to large disaster areas. And at the same time improve the world community’s ability to deal with natural disasters by making a better foundation for the reconstruction.

Thank you for your attention Claus Duedal Pedersen