TELESYNERGY Medical Consultation WorkStation

<<February 28, 2000>>

Dr. Edison Liu <liue@nih.gov>

Frank S. Govern, M.B.A., Ph.D. <fg36q@nih.gov>

Kenneth M. Kempner <kempner@helix.nih.gov>

Maj. Christian Macedonia, MD <cmacedonia@aol.com>

Yosuke Komatsu, MD, PhD <yosuke_komatsu@hotmail.com>

Dear Dr. Liu:
=============

(1) I am writing this at the kind suggestion of Dr. Govern (ATTACHMENT I).

(2) By the kind introduction of Dr. Macedonia of National Naval Medical
Center, I had an opportunity to visit Dr. Kempner to learn about his
newly built TELESYNERGY medical consultation workstation on January 6th.

(3) During our fruitful mtg, Drs. Govern and Kempner requested me to work on
the creation of worldwide network with the workstation along with our
project of establishing a Global University System (GUS) with global
broadband Internet both of which are to be financed with Global Service
Trust Fund (GSTF) -- see below.

An idea came up during our mtg was to have Japanese government donate
funds to build them, since about 80% of the equipment are Japanese-made
-- at the total cost of approximately $200,000 per unit, with the
software developed by your institute at free of charge, and distribute
to medical centers around the world which are to be connected with the
global broadband Internet.

Such a system network will bring medical expert knowledge to
developing countries for Continuing Medical Education (CME),
consultation and diagnosis. For example, it is said that one of
the middle eastern oil producing countries spends almost 55% of
national medical care expenses for sending their patients to
developed countries for their obtaining second opinions; diagnosis
of echocardiograph (see below) requires 7 to 8 years accumulated
experiences while the operation of its machine can be done by a
nurse.

(4) Drs. Govern and Kempner also requested me to publicize the system among
the attendees of the International Consultation Conference of TeleHealth
and TeleMedicine at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva on
January 12 to 14 -- for which I was invited with full support by its
convener, Dr. Salah Mandil, my long-standing acquaintance.

I duly distributed its brochures with the possible future plan mentioned
above, and generated strong interest among the attendees from around the world.

(5) Although not definite yet, I may visit Japan in April, and would like to
make preliminary inquiry on this project to;

(a) National Cancer Institute in Tokyo, if they would like to build
the same and test its connection with your system during our
planned workshop/conference in Tokyo,

(b) Former Minister of Foreign Affairs who has medical background and
to whom Dr. Mandil introduced me,

(d) Key persons in telemedicine field in Japan, etc.

(6) For this inquiry, I would like to have a list of Japanese equipment
component (maker, model, price, etc.) in addition to the brochures of
the system they provided to me before.

Should you approve their intention, pls kindly request them to send me the list.

(7) In order to forge ahead of establishing our Global University System, we
are planning to hold workshops in;

(a) Manaus/Amazona on May 31, June 1 and 2, with Pan American Health
Organization, PanAmerican Federation of Associations of Medical
Schools, UNAMAZ, and others, -- see below.

(b) Manila/Philippines with the University of Philippines/Open
University, St. Luke School of Medicine, WHO/Manila, etc.

During those workshops, we will have high speed ISDN line.

Should you approve, we can provide Dr. Kempner with time to speak about
the TELESYNERGY System in videoconferencing mode -- particularly during
the one at Manaus/Amazona.

(8) FYI, we are now forging ahead to establish a Global University System
with global broadband Internet which are to be financed with Global
Service Trust Fund (GSTF). Pls visit following URLs for more
information;

(a) Global University System:

<http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/Global_University/Global%20University%20System/Synopsis_11-5-99.html>, and

<http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/asia-pacific/index.html>,

(b) global broadband Internet:

<http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/Tampere_Conference/Global_Broadband_Internet/Global_Broadband_Internet.html>,

<http://www.informatics.org/clarke/projects.html>.

We intend to construct a global private virtual network (PVN) of
broadband Internet among non-profit institutions of education and
medical fields in the initial phase (*), with the GSTF which will be
collected from the Official Development Assistant (ODA) funds of G7 (or
OECD) countries. However, in due course, it will need to be opened to
commercial fields in order to have self-sustainability as having

profit-oriented organizations subsidizing the K-12's accessing the broadband
Internet in the later stage of the development -- as the US Universal
Service Fund is now doing or the case of the US St. Thomas Island with
the support of its governor with medical background.

(*) the precedencies are PEACESAT of the University of Hawaii and
USPNet of the University of the South Pacific in Fiji.

(9) Niches of our project are;

(a) The packet-switching technology of Internet is to share" valuable
telecom media. We expand this concept of sharing" as utilizing
broadband Internet for both tele-education and

tele-health and -medicine. By this way, we hope our project will be

self-sustainable even after federal funds is over, since each of them
alone cannot be cost-effective.

(b) As utilizing broadband Internet, we can leapfrog various
conventional telecom media, as combining and integrating them,
e.g., audio, fax, email, video, etc., etc., thus reducing telecom
cost, and hence to bring self-sustainability.

Our approach is a community development with non-profit organizations
(education, health, library, local government, etc.) in the initial
phase and later with commercial firms' involvements to subsidize telecom
infrastructure for K-12 schools' connections.

We hope that the local higher educational institution with broadband
Internet downlinking earth station is to become a major Internet Service
Provider (ISP) in their locality so that the institution can also
provide technical services and teacher training to nearby secondary and
K-12 schools, and others.

(10) Those projects were discussed during our International
Workshop/Conference on Emerging Global Electronic Distance Learning
(EGEDL)," August 9th - 13th, 1999, University of Tampere, Finland
<http://www.uta.fi/EGEDL/>.

Pls click Roger Boston's web in the home page of this site. Then, click
August 9 in the left column.

You can then click Telemedicine1 and Telemedicine2 at the top of the
right-hand side column to view video clipping of our echocardiograph
demonstration with Presbyterian Hospital of Columbia University in New
York with PictureTel via ISDN at 384 Kbps.

In this home page, pls also click "FINAL REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE."
Then go to "IV. Compilation of comments:" in PART I. Then click Shin
Takuma on October 8th. You can then find Dr. Takuma's (Presbyterian
Hospital) report of this demonstration.

In PART II of this final report, you can also find drafts of pilot
project proposals by groups in Asia-Pacific, North America,
Central America, Amazonas, European and African regions.

We will hold a mini-workshop in Manaus/Amazona on May 31, June 1
and 2. The telepresence demonstration with echocardiography will
be performed at the workshop by the Presbyterian Hospital of
Columbia University in New York. The echocardiograph image of a
patient on a tread mill in Manaus will be sent to the Presbyterian
Hospital for diagnosis, as we did during our Tampere event in
Finland last August. However, this time, the 3D image of his
heart will also be constructed as an upgraded feature, which can
be cut into a half to examine its inside. The images will be
disseminated to the participants around the world via ISDN and
Internet.

See <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Pantheon/7197/global-univ-2000/2-8-a.html>

for the schedules of the workshop.

BTW, this workshop in Manaus will have participants from;

1. Pan American Health Organization (PAHO),

2. UNAMAZ (a consortium of universities in 8 countries in
Amazon area),

3. PanAmerican Federation of Associations of Medical Schools (a
consortium of medical schools in Latin America),

4. University of Amazonas,

5. local TV station, etc.,

6. University of Tennessee/Knoxville,

7. Columbia University, etc.

(11) We would be very happy to be of any help to your people.

Looking forward to receiving your favorable reply soon,

Best, Tak
****************************************
ATTACHMENT I

From: "Frank Govern" <fg36q@nih.gov>
To: "Tak Utsumi" <utsumi@fpwww.friends-partners.org>
Cc: "Ken Kempner" <kk12z@nih.gov>
Subject: NCI's Involvement in Your Efforts
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 07:37:18 -0500

With all due respect, Ken and I answer to individuals higher up who must
approve things such as our activities of participation outside of our
government and collaborations with international or other government
organizations. As far as I know, you have not made any connections or
introductions to my direct boss, Dr. Edison Liu, Division Head of Clinical
Sciences, nor our top guy, the NCI Director, Dr. Richard Klausner. Without
their involvement and approval, we are unable to participate in your
seminars and conferences. Also, we are unable to provide a higher level of
information of substance concerning the TELESYNERGY medical consultation
workstation without approval from above.
****************************************

Return to Global University System Early 2000 Correspondence

List of Distribution

Dr. Edison Liu
Director
Division Head of Clinical Sciences
National Cancer Institute
(301) 496-3251
liue@nih.gov

Frank S. Govern, M.B.A., Ph.D.
Special Advisor for Institutional Outreach to the Director
Deputy Director, Radiation Oncology Science Program
Division of Clinical Sciences (DCS)
National Cancer Institute
National Institutes of Health
Building 10, Room B3-B69
9000 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20892-1002
301-496-5457
Fax: 301-480-5439
Beeper - 301-496-4567 then 5460 then return number
Portable Phone: 301-257-6964
fg36q@nih.gov

Kenneth M. Kempner
Chief, Image Management and Communication Section
Computational Bioscience and Engineering Laboratory
Division of Computer Research and Technology
Center for Information Technology
National Cancer Institute
National Institutes of Health
Building 12A, Room 2019
12 South Drive MSC 5624
Bethesda, MD 20892-5624 USA
301-496-9344
Fax: (301) 402-2867
kempner@helix.nih.gov
http://www.nih.gov/welcome/maps.html
http://www-dcs.nci.nih.gov/branches/rosp/index.html -- about TELESYNERGY System
http://www-dcs.nci.nih.gov/branches/rosp/partnersci.html -- about "Partnership in Science Program"
http://imcs.cit.nih.gov/publications/spie97/ -- about TELESYNERGY Medical Consultation WorkStation (MCWS)
http://www.allirelandcancer.com/ -- about NCI All Ireland Cancer Conference on October 3-6, 1999.

Maj. Christian Macedonia, MD
Guest Researcher, NIH-CIT
Major, US Army Medical Corps
Staff Maternal-Fetal Medicine Specialist
Prenatal Assessment Center
National Naval Medical Center
and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS)
8901 Wisconsin Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20889-5600
301-319-5050
pager 888-470-4287
Fax: 301-319-5047
cmacedonia@aol.com
cmacedonia@mxa.usuhs.mil
www.usuhs.mil
http://cbel.cit.nih.gov/~macedonc/

Yosuke Komatsu, MD, PhD
LCDR, MC, FS, JMSDF (Japanese Navy)
Visiting Scientist
Clinical Sciences Division
Department of Military and Emergency Medicine
National Naval Medical Center
and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS)
4301 Jones Bridge Road
Bethesda, MD 20814-4799
301-295-1774
Fax: 301-295-6773
Pager: 1-800-759-8888 PIN number 1358774
yosuke_komatsu@hotmail.com
ykomatsu@usuhs.mil
http://www06.u-page.so-net.ne.jp/ca2/yosuke-k/index-j.html
**********************************************************************
* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., Chairman, GLOSAS/USA *
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.) *
* Laureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance Education *
* Founder of CAADE *
* (Consortium for Affordable and Accessible Distance Education) *
* President Emeritus and V.P. for Technology and Coordination of *
* Global University System (GUS) *
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-3998, U.S.A. *
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Fax: 718-939-0656 (day time only--prefer email) *
* Email: utsumi@columbia.edu; Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676 *
* http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/ *
**********************************************************************

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