Evaluation of a pilot telemedicine network for accident and emergency work.
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Date
2002-09-09
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Abstract
A pilot accident and emergency teleconsulting service was established in Scotland It was based at the accident and emergency department of the main hospital in Aberdeen There were three peripheral sites in rural Grampian Peterhead Turriff and Huntly and one in the Shetland Isles The videoconferencing equipment used was connected by ISDN at 384 kbit s During the 15 months of the study 1998 videoconference calls were made of which 402 20 calls were made to the accident and emergency department for clinical consultations The majority of the clinical calls 95 were made between 09 00 and 17 00 and more than 90 were completed within 20 min During the majority of calls 87 one or more X ray images were transmitted The majority of patients 89 received treatment without transportation to the main centre in Aberdeen The present study demonstrated that accident and emergency teleconsultations can be technically reliable effective in reducing the number of patient transfers and acceptable to the referring clinicians As a result approximately 1 5 million has been made available by the government to develop a national system for Scotland