In order to increase the quality of medical care, especially in remote areas, we have begun development on a telemedicine system using the MediaStation 5000 (MS5000). The purpose of the system is to give health care providers at remote locations the ability to consult with specialists using a combination of video, audio, and externally acquired images. The video and audio can be used for face-to-face teleconferencing as well as sending medical information such as color doppler ultrasound or digital stethoscope. The system can also be used for education purposes to support bidirectional video/audio communications for grand round lectures, classes, and case conferences. In order to maximize the utilization of the available transmission medium (from land-based fiber optic cable to satellite link) while providing the best quality video and audio, the bit rate should be adaptable to a wide variety of bandwidths from 56 kbps to over 10 Mbps.
Because of its flexibility and large processing power, the MS5000, developed at the Image Computing System Lab at the University of Washington, is being used as the centerpiece of the system. The MS5000 is a single board multimedia system capable of digitizing audio and video, displaying up to 1280 x 1024 pixels, and performing 2 billion operations per second, using the Texas Instruments TMS320C80 MVP (Multimedia Video Processor). Coupled with a network card such as an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) interface adapter, the system can transmit and receive video, audio, and medical images.
For high-bandwidth applications, the MS5000 can encode a single video frame using the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) standard in 17 msec. This leaves 16 msec to perform video decoding, audio functions, and synchronization. For low-bandwidth links, the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) H.320 standard for video conferencing can be used. Since the MVP is programmable, it can also perform other tasks in addition to telemedicine including image display, image processing, and graphics functions such as window and level, unsharp masking, and 3-D reconstruction.
Based on its programmability and high level of integration and performance on various image processing and compression operations, the MS5000 is an excellent prototyping platform for a telemedicine system.
Preliminary experiences with telemedicine, multimedia
and ATM
Network Requirements and the Role of Multimedia in
Telemedicine
SeaHawk: A Telemedicine Project
in the Pacific Northwest
MS5000: A Multimedia Workstation
for Telemedicine
Telemedicine Resources