raoul de forcade

i Its name is Timed, it's hold at Genoa, and it is the most important Italian exposition-meeting about telemedicine, informatics and telecommunication in health. Two exposition areas for participants: one reserved to firms and sponsors, the other one to regions and Asl. We asked Edoardo Berti Riboli, Timed scientific committee co-ordinator and conceiver, how did the project rise. “The fist edition hold at Genoa last year rose a great interest for the topics at matter among many sectors of industry and health. To this scenario it corresponds on a side niches of enthusiasm for the health telematics by some groups of physicians and firms employing it; on the other side there is the lack of acknowledgement about this matter by Asl and public structures. Just starting off from thinking about these two points, already evident before conceiving Timed, it has been decided to run this initiative. Really it has been never carried out a meeting about telemedicine to such extent. There had been little panels about specific topics but never an event dealing with this topic at its full extent”.
So you decided to arrange things in grand style.
“Really things did not go like this. At the beginning it was thought of a little meeting to present a little apparatus. It concerned the first device to transmit electrocardiograph realized in Italy. The apparatus - built over the medical advice of a group of experts - allows transmitting an electrocardiogram by phone line. In our country, till this machinery was invented, it was used foreign instruments, mainly Israeli. Only the Sip at the end of the eighties produced a prototype having unfortunately the limit of transmitting on three channels, and on the other side there were not equipped centres to read this kind of inputs. Back to Timed, while we were thinking to organize this little meeting, we got aware of how much the telemedicine topic was unknown. So we deemed opportune to organize a meeting able to give space to all matters concerning health telematics even to better understand the potentialities of market. So Timed has pointed at all the communication technologies and telematics, including data managing, that can supply a support to implement the medical performance and health organization”.
What has been the adepts' reaction?
“Industries had good reaction as well as the scientific environment. All the major experts of the sector have attended the meeting and they represented both firms and research world. There has been instead a scarce participation of the public health: Asl and regions have not been
present. Nevertheless it has formed heterogeneous workgroups, composed by engineers, physicians and informatics experts having this way the possibility to meet and to discuss specific topics. Thanks to the mass media, finally the interest risen by Timed and the topics at matter had grown remarkably “. Nevertheless if I'm not wrong there a certain mistrust by some physicians towards the health telematics.
“That's right. There is resistance mainly from some specialists afraid of losing one's own professional individuality. I'll explain it better. A cardiologist for example may fair that if a general practitioner, by linking to a telemedicine centre, carries out a home electrocardiogram for a patient, this one wont' have the need anymore to apply for the specialist”.
It does not seem a fair groundless at all.
“There's something true, that's right, it would be absurd to deny it. But the centre only deals with problems that cannot be systematically solved by the specialist. For the rest it sends to his professionalism. A telemedicine institute carries out a role alike the urgency services; it's alike the first-aid. Who follows patients day by day goes on being the specialist. If it is thought about emergency situations when the specialist is not available, occurring maybe in isolated places, in some places in Africa or on a ship, then it is fully understood how telemedicine in needed. In any case, the greater acknowledgement about how the sector works and which are the applications, to which also Timed has contributed, makes resistance falls. Earlier there is less mistrust by specialists, even since they have become aware that they can enter into the heart of the functions of the telemedicine centres”. Professor, let's talk about the new edition of Timed...
“Surely. After the last experience we understood that Timed must someway change. Succeeding in reaching Asl and regions to set a relationship with institutions. We tried to involve all the great enterprises working in the informatics and telecommunication health field. The Region, and we did not know that , was working to realize its informatics net. At the end it has accepted to promote the meeting by collaborating to its organization and hosting all the other Italian regions. So all regions will have a stand wherein the several representatives of the Asl are invited to present their experiences and projects in health telematics. The Local health firms give great importance to Timed, since the major clients of industries are just they. Well then with the 1999 edition we tried to perfect what we started last year. We got together universities, industry, institutions and Asl and in less measure the private health to safeguard a market that, being very effervescent, risks to become chaotic”.
So Timed becomes an opportunity to spread the health telematics and to carry out verifications.
“Mainly the meeting must give voice to whom operates in this sector. There's also the (Assites)looking at industry and trying to establish exact rules in a field still too new to have some. Medicina Domani, finally is compelled in awaking markets by opening to other telemedicine centres. In Genoa there are important firms working in telematics and among our hopes there's also to ease the city becoming ever more representative in this field.

Raoul De Forcade
Journalist

Leadership Medica^®