title: Low-cost ISDN videoconferencing equipment for orthopaedic second opinions.
abstract: We validated the application of low-cost ISDN videoconferencing equipment for telemedicine. A telemedicine benchmark was designed and four different office videoconferencing systems were evaluated, all using basic-rate ISDN connections (128 kbit/s). All the low-cost systems showed generally good or acceptable performance for clinical use. We also investigated the feasibility of videoconferencing for an orthopaedic second-opinion service. Eight point-to-point conferences were conducted to discuss real clinical cases by use of interactive sharing of medical images. The average duration of each session was 35 min. Encouraging results were obtained.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Biomaterials Technology, Istituti Ortopedici Rizzoli, Bologna, Italy. baruffaldi@tecno.ior.it
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Baruffaldi
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mattioli
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Toni
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Klutke
authors.forename: K H
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Englmeier
mesh_terms: D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D009985:Orthopedics / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods*; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000191:economics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013686:Telemetry / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods