Telemedicine System Expected to Relieve Shortage of Eye Doctors

Feb 16, 2010 19:15 Jyunichi Ooshita, Nikkei Electronics

Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the University of Yamanashi and the Information Technology Center of the University of Tokyo conducted a field test of an ophthalmology telemedicine system developed by the University of Yamanashi.

In the field test, an eye doctor at the University of Yamanashi, which is located in Koufu City, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, examined a subject at the University of Tokyo, which is located in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, in real time. The terminal device used by the doctor and a remote-controlled microscope were connected via the "JGN2plus," a testbed network environment managed by Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT).

This time, the researchers of the organizations used the "Eye-view Robo," a slit-lamp microscope that can be remotely controlled and was developed by Kentaro Go, associate professor of the Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Medical and Engineering at the University of Yamanashi. A slit-lamp microscope is an ophthalmic diagnostic device for examining a patient's eye by using a slit light.

The Eye-view Robo enables a doctor to operate a slit-lamp microscope located in a remote place in real time by using a terminal device connected to the microscope via a network. With a CCD camera embedded in the slit-lamp microscope, the images seen by the microscope are transmitted to the terminal device in real time.

Many of the existing ophthalmology telemedicine systems connect eye doctors via a network so that the microscope images obtained by an eye doctor can be sent to another doctor for diagnosis. However, with such systems, it is difficult to take an image that the second doctor wants to have for diagnosis. The Eye-view Robo can solve this problem because it enables the second doctor to control the microscope and take images.

Furthermore, it is not necessary to have an eye doctor at the medical institution where the Eye-view Robo is installed. Therefore, the researchers aim to disseminate it in the regions where there is a shortage of eye doctors.

They are planning to test the Eye-view Robo at medical institutions for commercialization, expecting that it will be used, for example, for patients suffering a sudden eye disease at a local emergency department.

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