A collaborative telemedicine environment for the Ireland - Northern Ireland - National Cancer Institute international partnership in cancer care

The Ireland - Northern Ireland - National Cancer Institute Cancer Consortium was established to improve clinical cancer services and patient care on the island of Ireland, and to foster joint collaboration in cancer research and development. An important part of this Consortium was to develop telemedicine systems to facilitate collaboration between participating partners. We have implemented a telemedicine environment for the Consortium based on the TELESYNERGY/spl reg/ Medical Consultation Workstation developed at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The collaborative use of the system at the three sites has led to the improvement in quality of care in that each patient, regardless of location, can receive an expert assessment and given optimal therapy. The system will be a platform for collaborative clinical and translational research. In the future, this technology will be implemented at additional sites and applied to other medical specialties including cardiology, radiology, and infectious diseases.