Specialists via Telemedicine

Hospitals in rural Nepal will now be able to connect patients with outside specialists via satellite technology, thanks to a new initiative to harness the power of telemedicine to improve health care in the region.

According to published reports, the Nepal government plans to connect 25 district hospitals, most of them located in the remote and inaccessible Himalayas, to specialists in the capital Kathmandu via satellite uplink. Those specialists, in turn, will be linked up with "super-specialists" working in 12 hospitals across India, to give them access to further medical expertise when needed.

The project is the brainchild of Dr. Mingmar Sherpa, who used to run the main hospital in the Everest region in eastern Nepal. While working there he witnessed first hand the challenges faced by health practitioners in rural areas.

According to the reports, the satellite technology being used provides enough bandwidth to support videoconferencing. Perhaps more important, the health ministry recently completed a project to network the 25 hospitals via high speed Internet connections.

Local doctors will be able to send patient records, along with x-rays, ultrasound images and lab tests, to specialists in Kathmandu via a system known as "store and forward."