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Telemedicine
involves the use of communications technology to move medical
information rather than moving patients, so that anyone, anytime,
anywhere can benefit from the best health care available.
Throughout history, medical experts have tended to congregate in
large metropolitan areas, limiting access of those who live in
remote regions of the world. Telemedicine is becoming a powerful
tool to bridge this inequality of access to quality medical care.
Since February 2001, Sihanouk Hospital Center
of HOPE in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Partners Telemedicine in
Boston, Massachusetts, USA, have collaborated on telemedicine
projects in Cambodia. Sihanouk Hospital Center of HOPE provides
free care to Cambodians in need and is funded by HOPE Worldwide,
an international charitable organization and Mr. Toshu Fukami, the
chairman of World Mate, a Japanese non-profit welfare
organization. Partners Telemedicine is a division of Partners
HealthCare, a non-profit organization founded by Massachusetts
General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, both major
teaching centers for Harvard Medical School. Since the mid 1990s,
Partners Telemedicine has been using telemedicine to deliver
medical care to patients in more than 30 countries.
Partners Telemedicine and Sihanouk Hospital
Center of HOPE have named their collaborative program in Cambodia
“Operation Village Health.” Operation Village Health opened the
first Cambodian telemedicine clinic in Robib, a rural community in
the district of Rovieng. In two and a half years, over two
hundred patients have been treated for medical ailments ranging
from acute abdominal pain to iodine deficiency and diabetes. A
second telemedicine clinic was established at Ratanikiri Referal
Hospital in April 2003 to expand access to Operation Village
Health. In September, a “mobile internet village delivery system”
utiliziung motorbikers to pick up and deliver e-mail by wireless
technology to very remote villages was pioneered to 13 locations
plus one health center in Ratanakiri, opening the prospect of
ultimtely making telemedicine available to any forsaken location
in the world
From this page, you can link to monthly
reports from the telemedicine clinics and learn more about the
medical knowledge we have been providing. The website was created
and is maintained through the valiant efforts of our colleagues in
Cambodia. Medical recommendations shown in these pages are
tailored to each individual patient, and are not intended to be
used as general medical advice.
The opportunity to work with colleagues and
patients in Cambodia has been exciting and rewarding for the
U.S.-based doctors collaborating on Operation Village Health. We
are continually learning about Cambodian culture and the Cambodian
approach to health care. Our goal is to improve access to health
care and information on public health while strengthening the
capacity of our Cambodian partners to address health care needs
within the country. Many public health challenges exist in
Cambodia and we believe we can use telemedicine to help address
some of these.
Telemedicine can bring the expert knowledge
and experience of specialists to any location in the world set up
to receive information via telecommunications channels. Our vision
is that a villager in rural Cambodia may be assured of getting the
same medical care as a Bostonian at the Massachusetts General
Hospital in the United States. While it takes time and learning to
achieve this level of care, we believe our efforts in Cambodia are
first steps in that direction for all villages of the world.
Joseph Charles Kvedar, MD
Corporate Director, Partners Telemedicine &
Associate Professor of Dermatology
Harvard Medical School
1 Longfellow Place, Suite 216
Boston, MA 02114
Tel: 617-726-4447, Fax: 617-726-7530
e-mail:
jkvedar@telemedicine.partners.org
http://telemedicine.partners.org
Telemedicine Report 2001
[English Version][Khmer
Version][Robib
Villagers Q&A]
[Latest
Telemedicine News - February, 2001]
[Second
monthly Telemedicine examinations in Robib on March 16 and 17]
[April Report][May
Report][June Report][July
Report][August
Report]
[September Report][October
Report][December Report]
Telemedicine
Report 2002
[January][February][March][April][May][June][July][August][September]
[October][November][December]
Telemedicine Report 2003
[January][February][March][April][May][June][July][August][September]
[October][November][December]
Telemedicine Report 2004
[January][February][March][April][May][June][July][August][September]
[October][November][December]
Telemedicine Report 2005
[January][February][March][April][May][June][July][August][September]
[October][November][December]
Telemedicine Report 2006
[January]
[February]
[March][April][May][June][July][August][September][October][November][December]
Telemedicine Report 2007
[January][February][March][April][May][June][July]
Telemedicine Report 2008
[May][June][July][August][September][October][November][December]
Telemedicine Report 2009
[January][February][March][April][May][June][July][August]
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