Yano V M
Pacific Basin Medical Association, PO Box 822, 96940 Koror, Palau.
Pac Health Dialog. 2000 Sep;7(2):36-9.
The U.S. affiliated Pacific Island nations spend an average of over 10% of total health budget on off-island referral care to tertiary centers. Tripler Army Regional Medical Center (TAMC) has been the major provider of this service for many years. Prior to 1995 communication to consultants at TAMC was by long distance telephone, fax and regular mail. Connecting to a specialist sometimes took hours and clearly a better communication link was needed. The AT&T Picasso phone, an instrument the size of a small briefcase was developed to reliably transmit still images over the regular phone. Freeze-frame images captured at the sending end by a cam recorder were transmitted to a remote receiver unit, where they were displayed and stored. A typical medical consultation involved about three images, with each transmission over the 28.8 Kbps modem taking about one minute. A separate consultation form submitted by fax to TAMC was attached to the transferred images. Four Picasso phones were used to test their usefulness in linking isolated Pacific islands to a metropolitan medical center. For the first time ever, coloured patient images, data, X-rays etc were transmitted with a faxed written medical report. The Picasso phone was the spark of the Telemedicine development in the US affiliated Pacific islands.
美国附属太平洋岛国将平均超过10%的卫生总预算用于转诊到岛外三级医疗中心的医疗服务。多年来，特里普勒陆军地区医疗中心（TAMC）一直是这项服务的主要提供者。1995年之前，与TAMC顾问的沟通方式是长途电话、传真和普通邮件。联系专家有时需要数小时，显然需要更好的通信链接。AT&T毕加索电话是一种手提箱大小的设备，旨在通过普通电话可靠地传输静止图像。由摄像机在发送端捕捉的定格图像被传输到远程接收单元，在那里显示和存储。一次典型的医疗会诊涉及约三张图像，通过28.8 Kbps调制解调器进行每次传输大约需要一分钟。通过传真提交给TAMC的单独会诊表格会附在传输的图像上。四部毕加索电话被用于测试它们在将偏远的太平洋岛屿与大都市医疗中心连接方面的实用性。有史以来第一次，彩色患者图像、数据、X光片等与传真的书面医疗报告一起被传输。毕加索电话是美国附属太平洋岛屿远程医疗发展的导火索。
