Satellite Networking Provides Remote Telemedicine Capabilities

A new satellite-based e-health platform will allow Friendship (Dhaka, Bangladesh) floating hospitals to establish communications from remote areas and offer telemedicine counselling to marginalized communities.

Satmed, developed by SES (Luxembourg), is a newly deployed satellite-based e-health platform that will enable Friendship to establish communications with national and international doctors for the exchange of medical knowledge with local doctors. The information technology (IT) enabled cloud infrastructure is accessible around the globe, facilitating data exchanges between professionals and medical frameworks such as electronic medical records (EMRs) and teleradiology systems.

With the technical assistance of Square Informatix (Dhaka, Bangladesh), Friendship launched the first state-of-the-art maritime very small aperture terminals (VSATs) on three of their floating hospital ships - the Lifebuoy Friendship Hospital, the Emirates Friendship Hospital, and the Rongdhonu Friendship (formerly the Rainbow Warrior II) Hospital. The Satmed platform is funded by the Luxembourg Government and implemented in cooperation with SES Techcom Services and SES e-Medical Communication (eMC).

“The Satmed project is a great illustration of a true partnership between governments, the private sector and NGOs. Mutual trust and collaboration can enable innovative steps forward, and lead to deep benefits that impact directly on the beneficiaries,” said Runa Khan, founder and executive director of Friendship. “Satmed gives us a tool by which we are able to bring in specialized services of e-learning, special doctors, specialized back office resources, decisions of problems and ethical decisions, all this can be centralized and the same message can be given organization wide.”

“After implementing Satmed platform tools and services, the ship hospitals, via satellite connectivity, will be able to support and facilitate work in the areas of e-care, e-learning, e-surveillance, e-health management, and digital imaging,” said Gerhard Bethscheider, managing director of SES Techcom Services. “The SATMED platform makes e-health available, accessible and easy to use, with a goal to increase efficiency in healthcare and in-field health quality for Friendship especially in remote isolated areas.”

“At the end of the inauguration ceremony, two European doctors consulted with patients from the remote island known as Chars through teleconferencing directly from Europe,” said Marc Elvinger, chairman of Friendship in Luxembourg. “Without Friendship’s innovative healthcare model and the Satmed connectivity, such a facility would have been simply inconceivable to the poor marginalized people of this country.”

Related Links:
Friendship
Satmed
Square Informatix