VCU news

By Ronald Merrell
Department of Surgery

The team from Virginia Commonwealth University's Medical Informatics and Technology Applications Consortium (MITAC) recently was in the field again in Ecuador. Led by Dr. Ronald Merrell, the group established new telemedicine integration for a mobile health project and continued their work in informatics support for remote regions.

Data were collected on the fixed unit at Clinic Luxemborgo where Dr. Juan Leon addresses tropical diseases with advanced electronic medical diagnostics records and telemedicine. The medical record in this isolated area is multimedia incorporating microscopy, video, XML, text, colposcopy, ultrasound and electronic stethoscope into a record dense in the information that can be shared with colleagues inside Ecuador and abroad for medical evaluation. Dr. Leon, with support from MITAC has been engaged in ultrasound diagnosis in Amazonian villages only reachable by small planes or canoes.

The group that included Russell Hummell and Dr. Stephen Cone, also installed an experimental telemedicine unit in Sucua, Ecuador to serve the consulting needs of their primary care physicians led by Dr. Isabel Freire. Dr. Freire previously collaborated with MITAC on a detailed study of snakebites in the jungle, published in the World Journal of Surgery. The MITAC team also provided surgical support with the efforts of Dr. Merrell, materials donated by VCU Medical Center and continued operation of laparoscopy in a mobile surgical unit.

MITAC is supported by NASA and will next be in Ecuador in April 2004. A postdoctoral fellow from Ecuador, Dr. Francisco Mora, worked with Dr. Cone at the Ecuador desk in MITAC with continuous data collection. Over the last five years, 10 papers have been published concerning this work in telemedicine and monitoring remote medical events. A number of "firsts" in telemedicine have resulted from this VCU collaboration.