Connecting Hospitals through a Distance Learning Center and Permanent Remote Support Network - A Sicilian Project to Improve Patient Care

Providing health care outside major hospitals is difficult enough in urban settings, but is even more problematic in isolated places such as small towns. Sicily is an especially challenging case because it is a large island off the main track of mainstream Europe and contains many rural villages as well as numerous smaller islands. Although the major cities in Sicily currently have some well-equipped hospitals with expert staff, rare or complex diseases (e.g. neuropathology) still require support from national or international sources. There is no infrastructure for communication with such distant health-care centers, necessitating the transport of patients over long distances. The goal of the present project is to establish such a communication network to enable medical staff in remote locations, even at a patient’s home, to access databases (e.g. pharmacological), consult with clinicians on diagnosis, and even transmit monitored patient vital signs in real time. It is possible to create such a network gradually so that each step would be in operation even before the entire project is completed. This paper describes the knowledge-base, human resources and technical requirements for each step.