title: Telemedicine demonstration projects in the Western Pacific.
abstract: Telemedicine demonstration projects in the Western Pacific are attempting to provide distance medical consulting and distance medical education for the isolated health-care workforce of the region. The Picasso Phone system is a low-cost telemedicine system which requires only the standard telephone network for its operation, needs little additional equipment and is user-friendly. The demonstration projects have shown the utility of the system in both international, inter-island and on-island communications. All demonstration activities used the various existing island telephone systems. With the adaptation of such a user-friendly telemedicine system as the Picasso Phone system to the Peacesat public-interest educational network, the capacity of the telemedicine network will expand to include isolated islands with Peacesat capacity which do not have access to the commercial island telephone systems.
authors.affiliation: John A Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia. 103364,1332@compuserve.com
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Malani
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Dever
mesh_terms: D004501:Education, Medical / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008849:Micronesia; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000379:methods*; D013689:Telephone