We developed a mobile teleconsultation system based on third-generation mobile phone links. The system comprised a laptop computer and a digital camcorder. It was installed inside an ambulance to allow video-conferencing between the moving vehicle and a doctor at a base station. In addition to video and voice, high-quality still images could also be transmitted. A series of 17 trial runs with real ambulance patients was conducted in the city of Athens. In general, the videoconferencing sessions produced relatively clear video. The bandwidth was high enough for a satisfactory video of 10-15 frames/s. During a total testing period of 23 h and in an area of about 180 km2, there were nine instances of signal loss, amounting to a total of 17 min. The general opinion formed by the doctors was that the system produced good results. All initial diagnoses made using the system agreed with the final diagnoses of the patients. The study showed that the mobile system could reduce the time before an ambulance patient is seen by a doctor.

Recent advances in the hardware of handheld devices, opened up the way for newer applications in the healthcare sector, and more specifically, in the teleconsultation field. Out of these devices, this paper focuses on the services that personal digital assistants and smartphones can provide to improve the speed, quality and ease of delivering a medical opinion from a distance and laying the ground for an all-wireless hospital. In that manner, PDAs were used to wirelessly support the viewing of digital imaging and communication in medicine (DICOM) images and to allow for mobile videoconferencing while within the hospital. Smartphones were also used to carry still images, multiframes and live video outside the hospital. Both of these applications aimed at increasing the mobility of the consultant while improving the healthcare service.

In this paper, the Wireless LAN (WLAN) networking principals are presented along with some of the implementation scenarios dedicated for Accident and Emergency wards. Preliminary simulation results of the MedLAN concept are also presented together with ongoing and future work in this area.

This paper provides an overview of the operational parameters of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) In hospital and clinical ward environments and presents the concept of MedLAN system, dedicated to these environments. It then deals with the issues of security, range and interference with an emphasis on the first one.

Recently the concept of MedLAN systems dedicated to application scenarios for wireless local area networks (WLAN) in hospital A&E departments has been presented. An essential element in the acceptance of the system will be reassuring all stakeholders in the system that data transmitted using the system is secure. In order for the stakeholders to be reassured technical and managerial issues have to be addressed. Technical issues to be addressed include selection of a suitable encryption algorithm with a 128-bit key for encrypting the wireless links and identification of a suitable crypto-board to be fitted to the system laptop computers. In many respects the managerial issues pose bigger challenges than the technical issues. Where the MedLAN system is being introduced members of the E-MED Systems Research Group will have to liaise with hospital managers to establish how the hospital's data security-policy can be expanded to accommodate the E-Med system and the cost implications of this expansion determined. The cost of insuring the security of the data handled by the MedLAN system will have to be determined.

The paper provides an overview of the application scenarios and modelling issues of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) in hospital and clinical ward environments and presents the concept of MedLAN system, dedicated to these environments. Furthermore, it discusses the potential problems when implementing such systems.

Wireless networks will become increasingly useful in point-of-care areas such as hospitals, because of their ease of use and their flexibility. A system called MedLAN has been developed by the Central Middlesex Hospital and Brunei University to take advantage of the above desirable properties of WLANs for use in accident & emergency departments to broadcast live, high quality video images and sound over a LAN or the Internet. However, in many cases, the limited available throughput of such a WLAN system makes the use of high demanding specifications, such as DICOM, problematic especially when using no compression during transmission. In this paper we will present some practical results when combining low compression with wireless LANs. We will conclude with the assessment of images and sounds by several doctors showing that the system we have devised is very useful in this setting.