ITU and RAFT launch the Pan American Telemedicine Network project

ITU and HUG have announced the launch of a new partnership to support implementation of a Pan American Telemedicine Network to enable the deployment of telemedicine services and tools along with IT enabled diagnostic devices to the regional and district hospitals to address the challenges of access to and quality of health services in remote areas in Latin America. The project will enhance diagnostic and therapeutic decisions in remote areas, improve capacity and motivation of care professionals through distance continuing education, enhance coordination of public health activities and improve cooperation and knowledge sharing between Latin American medical universities and hospitals. The partnership will aim, in a first phase, to establish telemedicine networks in Latin American countries to enable tele-consultation assistance and continuous medical education and to evaluate the impact of such networks for the improvement of healthcare processes and public health activities. In a second phase, the project will link national telemedicine networks to a grid enabled environment and high-speed networks to enable research, advanced image processing, tele-diagnosis and epidemiological studies.