The design of specialist paediatric cardiology telemedicine services to meet the needs of patients.

An observational study was conducted of two different videoconferencing services offered by the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust (RBH), a tertiary centre for cardiology in London. In the first, specialist cardiology advice was provided by telemedicine (384 kbit/s bandwidth) to four district general hospitals in England. In the second, specialist cardiology advice was provided via a low-cost videoconferencing system (128 kbit/s bandwidth) to the Mother and Child Institute in Belgrade. The hospitals chose to use the equipment for different purposes and in different ways. However, at the end of the study, they continued to use telemedicine for the normal provision of clinical services. The success of the projects can be partly attributed to the staff involved and in particular, to the telemedicine champions at the RBH. The needs of the patients were identified and then the telemedicine service was designed by local clinicians to meet those needs.