Relief for maritime medical emergencies through telematics

MERMAID is a European Union (EU)-financed maritime telemedicine project with global reach and 24 h multilingual capability to serve multinational crews working in the isolation of the world´s oceans. It provides a model for the provision of healthcare services based on the electronic transmission of medical information via ISDN-based videoconferencing. This model is not limited to medical diagnostics, but it encompasses all cases in which the actual delivery of healthcare services involves a patient who is not located where the provider is. Its implementation requires the commissioning of an extensive telecommunications infrastructure that includes both satellite transmission for ship to shore communication and an extensive ground-based network for summoning expert medical help from around the world so as to meet the project´s multilinguality requirements and, therefore, the exploration of a number of solutions. In fact, all categories of telemedical applications (audio and video conferencing, multimedia communications, flat file and image transfer with low-, medium-, and high-bandwidth data requirements) are considered, while the full range of network choices (digital land lines, cellular/wireless, satellite, and broadband) are being tested in terms of cost/performance tradeoffs that are inherent to them and the developmental stage each of these options occupies in their lifecycle. Finally, out of that, MERMAID utilizes advanced land-based line transmission technologies to aid the remote patient by making available the specialist care that is best suited in the particular case.