Swedish-Lithuanian Cooperation in Development of Telemedicine Applications The Litmed Project and Beyond Presentation at: Owe Svensson, Project Coordinator Region Skåne Lars-Olof Almquist, Coordinator TietoEnator Trigon AB T H E T E L E B A L T C O N F E R E N C E “Teleworking for Business, Education, Research and e-Commerce” Vilnius, Lithuania, October 2002

Sweden The Location of Region Skåne

Region Skåne and its nearest neighbours - a new perspective

Cooperation since long time | Region Skåne started to establish contacts for cooperation in 1993 | Kaunas Medical University Hospital and Municipality Health Care | Kaunas University of Technology | PHARE Primary Health Care Project | The Litmed Project – start 2000

Background of the Litmed Project l Region Skåne’s contacts in Lithuania l St Erik Eye hospital in Stockholm l Telemedicine companies interest l Financed by the Baltic Sea IT-Fund

Partners | Kaunas University of Technology (KUT) | Kaunas Medical University Hospital (KMUH) | Stockholm County Council (SCC) ; Sankt Erik's Eye hospital AB | Region Skåne (RS) ; Lund University Hospital | TietoEnator Trigon AB (TE)

Initial step | Purchase of telemedicine workstations | A development contract with the supplier | Carry through examples of telemedicine sessions in the ENT and Eye field.

Otorhinolaryngology Kaunas - Lund | Collaboration between Lund and Kaunas ENT- departments based on existent relations | Four main applications: ; Tele-education and consultations on larynx surgery. ; Consultations on laryngostroboscopic images. ; Support to rehabilitation of children with cochlea implants (first operation in Lithuania made 1998). ; Distant programming of speech processors for cochlea implants.

Ophthalmology Kaunas - Stockholm | The main goal was to create a tele-ophthalmology network between Kaunas and Stockholm | Main areas tested were: ; Tele-consultations ; Information exchange ; Research ; Distance education

Kaunas University of Technology (KUT) and Euromed AB | KUT was the technical partner in the project | The main activities were: ; Technical support to project activities ; Development and adaptation of software to Lithuanian environment ; Improvement of the user interface

Results | The Telemedicine Support Centre has been established at Kaunas Univ. of Technology | A medical centre for telemedicine has also been established at the University of Kaunas | The telemedicine workstation supplier locate further development to Kaunas. | Several new professional networks has been created | The IT infrastructure at Kaunas Hospital has been developed through the project

Spinn off.. | The telemedicine workstation can be used as a videoconference station for other purposes as for ex. ; Biomedical engineering conferences ; Project meetings for continued projects

Final Project Report | Conference was held ; In Kaunas Distance Education Centre ; ISDN ; LANr ; Live on Internet ; Steaming video from | Final report was published in June 2002

… and beyond | Ongoing discussions with several hospitals in Lithuania to be part of the Lithuanian teleophtalmological network | A new project called Baltic Medweb 2 has been started in Kaunas, based on the results from the Litmed project and the Baltic Medweb project. | The development of the medical software at KUT has continued.

A Litmed II? | A new project application is negotiated with the Swedish Government | A telepathology network in the Baltic Sea Region | Broad cooperation on Swedish side | Development of IT-support for pathology | Further enhancement of the telemedicine infrastructure

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