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 Canadian
Medical Association Journal
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Saskatoon doctors make a house call to MARS
Saskatoon was the lone Canadian site and 1 of only 4 worldwide that took part in a recent mock medical emergency designed to test the limits of long-distance medicine.
Doctors at Saskatoon District Health joined colleagues from Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, Va.), Yale University (New Haven, Conn.), and a hospital in Moscow in diagnosing — via the Internet — an injured "astronaut" at the Mars Arctic Research Station (MARS) on Devon Island, Nunavut Territory. The island is being used to simulate the Martian landscape. The Aug. 2 test was staged by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the MARS Project.
Participating physicians viewed the patient's medical data and vital signs on their computers and then conferred online and used special video teleconferencing technology to arrive at a diagnosis. Patient information, as well as the providers' agreed-upon treatment plan, were subsequently sent back to the attending physician on Devon Island — with a 22-minute delay designed to simulate the transmission time between Earth and Mars. A manned mission to Mars is currently in the early-planning stage.
"It was an excellent opportunity for our district, both in terms of the research itself but also to be a part of an international initiative such as this," said Karen Levesque, telehealth coordinator for Saskatoon District Health.
The district was selected for the trial because of its reputation as a Canadian leader in telehealth. The health district, which serves as tertiary care centre for the northern part of Saskatchewan, delivered more than 1600 2-way, real-time audiovisual presentations to health providers, patients, and the public in the north last year, as part of a pilot project called the Northern Telehealth Network. — Greg Basky, Saskatoon
Copyright 2000 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors |
