Telemedicine in urgent neurosurgery.

The transportation of patients, the speed of stating the diagnosis and fast commencement of adequate treatment are the most problematic moments. We see the solution to this problem in the shortening of time between accident and admission of the patient at the neurosurgical center. We would like to underline that no matter how important is the connection between the hospitals, it represents only one technical aspect of communication. The software module for fast, comfortable and safe transmission of data was developed by experts of f. West Trend Encore Inc. in cooperation with the medical expert group and in our region it is referred to as ER-Slovakia, with the access to Internet. Our experience has proved definitely that the time between the accident and the admission of the patient at the neurosurgical center can be shortened. According to our experiences the time of 6-8 hours, could be possibly reduced into 2-2.5 hours. The process of mailing the request for consultation with picture documentation to and receiving a qualified evaluation from a distant center takes about 10-15 minutes. From September 1, 1999 to December 31, 2000 we have 244 consultations among the hospitals and the neurocenter. We have focused our consultation on acceleration of the correct diagnosis statement, early commencement of sufficient treatment and at last but not at least, on providing of qualified evaluation of treatment by the specialized center. On the basis of consultations, a conservative way of treatment was used in 100 patients, further diagnostic evaluation was necessary in 32 patients, and 77 patients were hospitalized in the neurosurgical center. 47 patients of the given number (19% of total number), needed an urgent transportation to different hospitals were they were subdued to operations. (Tab. 2, Fig. 1, Ref. 6.)