MEDical NETwork. MedNET helps rural Peru access health care services with telemedicine via satellite

Currently, patients in rural Peru and Brazil travel long distances just to arrive at a rural health centre. Upon arrival, due to a chronic dearth of medical equipment at these health facilities, a patient receives only basic primary care. Access to specialist physicians is rare. If the physician is uncertain and decides to refer the patient for further consultation and/or examination, only approximately 5% of patients undertake the journey. Consequently, large sections of the community in these regions are effectively disenfranchised from the health service. MedNET, an initiative part funded under the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community (EC), is attempting to tackle this problem of improving access to a quality health care service by enhancing social inclusion for outlying, under-served regions. MedNet will be deployed in both Peru and Brazil and will enable doctors to constantly monitor patients, assisted by an automated infrastructure which promotes the sharing of knowledge and resources between doctors in remote areas and specialists in urban centres and by providing access to medical applications in a range of fields from gynaecology, paediatrics and cardiology to region-specific diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis. Additionally, patient information from examinations will be stored in a secure database along with information concerning demographics and medication prescribed.