MTP: A Cloud-based Real-time Mobile Tele-medicine Platform - Systems Paper

The global demand for tele-medicine services has increased rapidly, prompting clinics to adopt virtual care solutions. This shift towards remote medical consultations has become especially crucial for minimizing direct patient contact, particularly in urgent medical situations where receiving professional healthcare in a timely manner is essential, such as during episodes of stroke. Importantly, access to specialist care in regional centres (spokes) is often limited and relies on communication with major centres (hubs) for consultation and treatment support. The technical needs for tele-medicine are well defined, however the tools are often inadequate, requiring multiple parallel applications to be used at a time. For consultations, remote clinicians need to access to patient assessment notes, medical records and often imaging in order to provide treatment recommendations, oversee patient care and make transfer recommendations when the patient requires a higher level of care. The implementation of the hub and spoke tele-medicine model has been highly successful in supporting regional healthcare throughout the world, greatly increasing access to specialist care. In a typical regional centre (spokes), there is often no specialist staff, which is strongly associated with poorer clinical outcomes among patients living in regional areas. We have developed a single, scalable platform to support tele-medicine needs patients in the Australian context. The platform enables healthcare providers to rapidly connect, collaborate, and plan effective treatment pathways for patients. It supports real-time clinical assessment notes sharing, live patient tracking with integrated video conferencing and chat capabilities by facilitating real-time communication and coordination among medical professionals. The Mobile Tele-medicine Platform (MTP) offers patients and especially those in rural areas a greater chance of receiving the vital care from remote specialists - in particular during the episodes of stroke.