TELEMEDICINE in Portugal was born at
IEETA/Universidade de Aveiro 20 years ago.
The “Ordem dos Engenheiros”
(Portuguese Engineers Association) has recognized this landmark in its book and
exhibition “Engenho e Obra: Engenharia
em Portugal no Sec. XX” (Ingenuity and Work:
Engineering in Portugal in the 20th Century). In fact, our EU
Project “Telemedicine”, developed between 1988-1991 was recognized to have
fostered the “FIRST
TELEMEDICINE EXPERIENCE IN PORTUGAL” [1].
The last 20 years of R&D
in TELEMEDICINE at IEETA have been very active and several products today in
the market have been based on R&D results from this group, of which some
examples are:
·
The first tele-radiology system developed and
commercialized in Portugal – now called “INTERACT” – was developed
between 1994-1998
·
A tele-echocardio and
Tele-Cardio [2] systems were transferred to Portugal Telecom between
1998-2000 and are now part of their Medigraf
Telemedicine Platform [3,4]
Following
the already long tradition of IEETA, SIAS is exploring new frontiers in
TELEMEDICINE by innovative R&D in:
·
New wearable
technologies,
where we have developed new patented biosensors to be embedded in textiles.
·
Mobile
technology
for mobility in healthcare. The use of mobile technology will operate a dramatic
change in the way healthcare is provided to citizens.
·
New broadband
(100Mbps – 10Gbps) Telemedicine and Tele-presence services.
SIAS has been anticipating this eminent
revolution by a series of projects in this area, several papers and the
participation in several forums in the area.
[1] http://www.engenhoeobra.com.pt, accessed
21.12.2008
[2]
J. P. S. Cunha, A. S. Pereira, M. Martins, R. Lourenço,
L. Fonseca, F. Galvão, and L. Damas,
"Telecardio - a multimedia telecardiology
system," Journal of Telemecidine and Telecare, vol. 5, pp. 257 - 258, 1998.
[3] http://www.medigraf.pt/, accessed 21.12.2008
[4]
Revista Focus - Tecnologia
307/2005, pp. 16-17
