On-field evaluation of CAROLIN, an Italian teleconsulting cardiology application: early results

This paper reports the results of the on-field user-oriented test phase of CAROLIN, a teleconsulting application that has been developed to enable the transmission of cardiovascular movies to a remote site and manage the following consultation through an integrated audio-videoconferencing system. This application has been used during everyday hospital procedures in two Italian clinical pilot sites. The purpose of this experience is to evaluate the tool effectiveness and its impact on everyday clinical practice, and point out new directions to be followed. The authors report statistical data based on measurements of technical and clinical parameters and of first-use subjective impressions collected during the validation period and currently experience in the pilot sites