Improved telecommunications will transform Nunavik’s health delivery

[image] http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/pub/photos/132_tandberg_internMXP.jpg

The Tandberg "intern" will be Nunavik's tele-health connection to medical specialists in southern Quebec.

Full story

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674improved_telecommunications_will_transform_nunaviks_health_delivery/

[excerpt]

KUUJJUAQ — Don’t be surprised if you run into a doctor in Nunavik who looks almost like a robot, is about five feet tall, and has wheels for feet, a bar for a back, computer screen for a head and a camera for a hat.

It’s just one of the new “interns,” made by a company called Tandberg, which will make their appearance in community clinics and hospitals throughout Nunavik, said Wayne Labadie, the co-ordinator of information services for Nunavik’s regional board of health and social services.

They’ve already arrived at Kuujjuaq’s Tulattavik hospital and at the Inuulitsivik hospital in Puvirnituq, where they’re the most visible signs of changes in the delivery of health and social services in Nunavik.

The audio-visual hook-ups that are part of the tele-health carts or “interns,” as they’re sometimes called, will give each nurse or doctor in Nunavik instant access to the McGill University Health Centre — and their video conversations about patients will take place in real time on the screen.

The new system will provide more efficient access to laboratory results, quicker access to emails and the Internet, and, by March 2012, everyone in the health system will be able to consult electronic clinical records.

As a result, Labadie told counsellors Nov. 28 at the Kativik Regional Government meeting in Kuujjuaq, there will be less risk and better follow-ups for patients.

The improved telecommunications system is due to a five-year contract worth $9 million from Quebec’s Department of Health and Social Services with the KRG’s Tamaani Internet service provider.

And, after 18 months of preparation, the new and improved telecommunications system for health and social services facilities in Nunavik is ready to roll out.

Called the Nunavik Telecommunications Network, the new system uses the same satellite network and local infrastructure as Tamaani.

But the new network will be separate, more secure, and provide the bandwidth needed by 29 health and social services points around Nunavik.

Youth Protection will see its own “locked-down,” secure system within the new network.