TeLeCare

Objectives

This program supports the commercialisation and deployment of the March Networks home telehealth solution to be delivered over two-way satellite networks. This solution enables remote nursing visits and vital sign monitoring through fully interactive voice, video and data transmission, and will target healthcare service delivery in rural and remote areas.

This solution is unique in that the targeted operators/users of this system are homecare nurses and their patients, therefore careful application of advanced technologies must be considered in the development and design. Successful adoption of this type of solution will be very dependant on the ability to deliver a user friendly, seamless end to end solution, that provides both economical value and enhances the ability of caregivers to deliver healthcare to their patient base.

The research and development effort will focus on development of the web-based software application, the communications interface that will allow the solution to be deployed over two-way satellite, and extension of the health monitoring kit (patient terminal) to support broader disease management capabilities as a strategic business direction for the solution as a whole.

Challenges

There are two key challenges in the development of this solution. The ability to deploy patient terminals in remote locations is made possible through the satellite communication system. The ability to remotely diagnose problems, and upgrade terminal functionality in the field is critical to the success of a commercially viable deployment.

The solution is built on the latest technologies. The users of the system are primarily nurses and the patients they care for. It is important that the unique requirements of this user population are properly addressed in order to ease the adoption of this technology for its intended purpose.

Plan

The plan is to design, build, and prototype the terminals and network hosted application in support of a complete turnkey telehealth solution to be deployed over two-way satellite. The terminals will we built to provide two-way audio and video conferencing between nurses and patients. The ability to take vital sign measurements and listen to heart and lung sounds during a remote visit will be supported along with the capability for patients to take their vitals unassisted for review by a nurse at a later date.

The final end-to-end solution demonstration and delivery is scheduled for March 2004.

Current Status

On June 22nd, the TeLeCare team successfully delivered their final presentation to ESA at March’s offices in Ottawa. At that time, the final TeLeCare terminals and network application were demonstrated. Subsequently, on July 5th in Frascati, Italy, the solution was demonstrated to a wider audience at the Telemedicine Symposium.

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The project has delivered on its objectives to develop a solution that provides the best possible care management service over any available network infrastructure, and provides a product roadmap that supports a broad range of features and functionality to the healthcare market segment.

Of particular interest in this achievement is the ability to broaden the delivery of telehealth services via two-way satellite into rural and remote communities, where available healthcare services suffer from chronic shortages of healthcare professionals, and where remote visiting can demonstrate significant benefits in the reduction of travel time and expenses for both healthcare providers and their clients and where early intervention and disease management can provide a dramatic impact on a patients quality of life.

The March Networks home telehealth solution now enables the following services:

• Remote nursing visiting supporting teaching/training capabilities

• Vital sign monitoring and tracking of trends, including off-line monitoring, exceptions reporting and medication reminders

• Case management, including electronic health records, scheduling, and reporting

• Care on demand – ability of patients to interact with a healthcare professional on demand (outside of a scheduled appointment)

March Networks is actively pursuing early deployment opportunities. For ongoing updates, please visit their site at www.marchhealthcare.com.

Telesat Canada is also pursuing HomeCare via satellite services using its fleet of satellites including Anik F2 with 45 beam Ka-band payload.