A NETWORK OF INTEGRATED VERTICAL MEDICAL SERVICES TARGETING SHIP
VESSELS and REMOTE POPULATIONS

• Prime Contractor: ATKOSoft SA
• Budget: 3.000.000 EURO
• EU Program: TELEMATICS APPLICATIONS PROGRAMME
• Implementing Organizations: The NIVEMES Consortium
• Project Duration: 3 years

Project Mission

“To offer the best possible expert medical help based on original (actual) medical readings to individuals or to the members of specific user groups in remote, emergency and problematic situations and locations, and enhance the chances for a successful final medical treatment, applying the latest technology to the benefit of the value of human life”

Subject

The proposal focuses on the development of a Telemedicine network of healthcare service providers aiming at the provision of high quality medical services - either of a diagnostic nature or in the form of first aid assistance. These services will be addressed to population groups that are either permanently or temporarily remotely located and are not adequately served by local medical experts. Initially, the project will focus on the shipping sector (sailors) and on remote populations of small islands.

Short description

The goal of NIVEMES is to develop an international network of Telemedicine Healthcare providers and telemedicine services that will be offered in a consistent and integrated manner to individuals or groups in remote locations or emergency situations. This conceptual network will consist of Medical Institutions connected via communication links in a coherent network. The project will result in healthcare services that either are unique (not provided at all up to now) or will dramatically enhance existing ones.

It is widely accepted that existing services state -of -the -art is far behind the technology that is possible today to be implemented in such services. It is worth mentioning that the NIVEMES project will not propose any technology that is not today widely available, showing that the key of the radical improvement of the relevant services is not new technology, but integration and interoperability of available ones.

The project will develop:

A core of integrated healthcare services, support functions and applications used by a network of Telemedicine healthcare providers - medical institutions.

A set of integrated healthcare services offered by this network, targeting:

• Mobile user groups, applicable to the maritime industry, with the provision of Telemedicine services to sailors of ship vessels.
• Remote site population, applicable to the population of the many isolated small Islands.

On-board of the ship vessel will be a Compact NIVEMES Ship Node. Having a user-friendly user interface, it will be operated by officers that will pass an elementary training course. The original medical data will be transmitted via satellite to a mainland medical institution that is chosen according to appropriate criteria (the nearest to the incident or the one speaking the same language with the crew). This institution will take the immediate responsibility. It will fetch the patient relevant data, stored possibly to another NIVEMES Medical Institution database, and provide the appropriate Telemedicine services after coming through a Teleconsultation session with the NIVEMES institution that possesses the Patient Record.

Telemedicine services offered to the population of remote locations may be divided in regular or scheduled, and emergency, according to the size, equipment and personnel of the local medical centre.

• Scheduled services, such as regular check-ups or examination of a portion of the population, covering activities that otherwise would be covered by mobile health service units.
• Planned check-ups of remote location' s population through Telemedicine procedures.
• Medical and surgical follow-up and medication checks, including post surgical follow-up care
• Diagnostic evaluations based on history, physical findings and available test data.
• Extended diagnostic work-ups
• Emergency services, such as initial urgent evaluation of patients, transfer decisions and pretransfer arrangements, when emergency incidents or situation occurs. In that case, the Telemedicine services offered, are directly related to the size, equipment and number of experienced personnel in the local medical centre. Services offered may range from expert-assisted diagnosis, up to the full range of services described above in sailors Telemedicine.

The basic outcome of the project will be the formation of the NIVEMES network of Telemedicine HealthCare provides, having as initial members the medical institutions participating in the project.

The project mission defines a very broad project framework. The technology used for this project, due to its design requirements, makes the resulting system applicable to more general cases than the ones of the ship vessels and remote populations that will be the project's target. More specifically, this system could offer its services to almost any remote and isolated place (like oil rigs, rural areas, near arctic regions), or in emergency and disaster situations where the usual telecommunication is not functioning and the need of mobility of the medical - rescue teams is high.

Future extension of the proposed project is envisaged in both depth and breadth. The former focuses in providing more healthcare services from the same network to the same users or user group while the latter refers to the application of this technology and structure to other users or user groups that require similar services, through the same or extended network of Telemedicine healthcare providers.

The Consortium Structure

The consortium is user-oriented, having as members:

End-user Unions with over 5 million members worldwide (ITF has more that 5 million members in 400 trade Unions in over 100 countries )

Public organizations and authorities relevant to the project's subject (Irish Naval Service and Southern Health Board-IE)

Reputable medical organizations.

Telemedicine Service Providers (Sahlgrenska University Hospital -SE-, Cork University Hospital -IE)

Large international companies with unique experience in fields and technologies most important for the project (Alenia SpA-IT, ESA)

IT providers-developers experienced in the Health Telematics (ATKOSoft-GR, SHB-IE)