Onshore - offshore model in distance medicine to imrove treatment, training

PC based video technologies are also changing the face of medicine.

Acadian Ambulance plans to link offshore doctors by PC based TV to more than a hundreds emergency technicians already on oil platform in the Gulf of Maxico. Telemedicine should improve both diagnosis and onsite treatment, eliminating many of the emergency helicopter flights that cost oil companies between $4000 and $12000 for each trip.

Australian state government use telemedicine to provide care to remote areas of Australia and even to other areas of Southeast Asia. Malaysia plans to use the PC based TV technology as the basis of a 'telehealth' program throughout the country. The goal is to provide not simply acute area, but lifelong prevention programs to help its citizens avoid the heart disease and other life style related illnesses that have become common in the West.

Columbia/HCA in the US us using Internet based video to provide medical training to physicians, becoming the first hospital to do a heart operation live over the Internet. The doctor demonstrated surgical techniques over the video, and an accompanying side presentation provided technical details. The video can be replayed at any time so that surgeaons at all of Columbia's clinics and hospitals can gain exposure to advanced techniques that would otherwise not be available to them.