Internet-based continuing medical education in remote areas of China: WebMEd: economical PC-based tele-education and telemedicine

摘要

A picture is worth a thousand words. -Chinese proverb. The original literal translation of the saying says that a picture's meaning can express 10,000 words. China and other areas of the planet share the unfortunate reality that their rural populations have limited or no access to specialty health care personnel, expertise or facilities. A simple, cost-effective web-based Continuing Medical Education program is presented that allows even some of the most remote areas of China virtual access to medical information, medical specialists and teams of medical consultants, regardless of their location. The proposed project suggests a grassroots approach in improving widespread medical education using the existing telecommunication infrastructure, with minimal equipment requirements that would act as a backup to future systems. For the purposes of this paper, the presented system is termed WebMEd (Web-based Medical Education). WebMEd is a simple and sustainable project that can represent future advanced systems, while remaining economical. Several internet-based medical educational (tele-education) and consultation techniques were evaluated during the course of this study. These ranged from simple e-mail consultations and virtual case presentations to inexpensive Video Teleconferencing (VTC). A web site was created as an example of one way of coordinating such discussion groups from scratch. It is concluded that WebMEd will make a viable platform for a feasibility study in China or other remote areas of the world.