05 Jul Enabling Tele-Medicine facilities in the Northern Cape Province
Introduction
The University of Pretoria Medical School developed a telemedicine solution and collaborated with the Northern Cape Department of Health for the initial deployments. The Pretoria University solution integrates the patient visits to the local clinics, patient records and medical history, the clinic tele-practitioner actions, remote diagnostic equipment and regional specialist support into a seamless platform. The University also provide medical training to “clinician” to lead the on-site clinic activities.
The Challenge
While this telemedicine solution developed by the University of Pretoria resolves many of the challenges relating to providing advanced medical services in rural areas using very limited medical staff and specialists it does need reliable communication to operate. With the first project deployed in Port Nolloth, Northern Cape area, lack of reliable communication was challenge #1. The remote clinics are all “off-grid” with no reliable access to fibre or mobile networks. Also, the communication solution must be affordable and support real-time applications such as Team calls, video consultancy sessions and clinician and specialist communications.
The Solution
The SolutionPretoria University partnered with Satellite Communication for the supply of medical equipment and also delivery of the Twoobii Smart Satellite Solution. Satellite Communication is a long-standing channel partner for the Twoobii service with trained field engineering teams who completed the initial project installations with ease. The advanced quality-of-service and feature set of the Twoobii service ensured that the real-time telemedicine applications were all successfully supported.
“We can deliver quality medical services to our most vulnerable members of the community, timeously and cost-effectively”.
Anthony Glass. Satellite Communications
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