Secure Electronic Cooperation - SES@m -Tromsoe

2004.06.29 by Per C. Lindberg

The summer holiday is about to start, and we would like to report on the first six months of the project. The spring has been busy and we have experienced several obstacles, but most of what we planned has been done. This newsletter provides a brief summary of the activities and some words about the autumn priorities.

The SES@m-projects organisation

Project owner is the Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine (NST). The Norwegian Ministry of Social affairs is the main financial contributor and the Social and Health directorate is responsible for the governmental follow-up.

Project manager is Per Angermo, NST

The project is split into five sub-projects:

1. Preparatory work, manager Per Angermo

2. Technical and mobile solutions, managerKai Vidar Falao, NST

3. Security and legal issuses, manager Leif Erik Nohr, NST

4. Telemedicine services, manager Lisbeth Remlo Abelsen, NST

5. Trailing research, manager Ann-Therese Lotherington, NORUT Social Research Ltd.

Sub-project 1 Preparatory work
The projects goal is to develop a detailed design for the main project, obtain financial coverage, establish the necessary cooperative relations and work out contracts.

Status is that the design and the project description is in place, relations established and contracts are signed. However one of the partners (Telenor) is no longer participating due to lack of financial coverage and dismissals.

Sub-project 2 Technical and mobile solutions

The projects goal is to connect the municipality's network with the Norwegian Health Network to provide the home care service, nursing homes and general practitioners with secure communication both internally and with the hospital. These possibilities needs to be both stationary and mobile and must include access to the electronic patient record (EPR).

Status is that connections are established and fully functional but on a temporary solution. The major drawback of the connection is that it lacks the possibility to access images on a camera. This function is needed to provide the home care service and the nursing homes with access to the Telemedicial wound ambulatory at the University Hospital of North Norway.

Regarding mobility we are working to find a functional hardware solution and we have mapped the GSM/GPRS-coverage in the actual area.

Sub-project 3 Security and legal issues

The projects goal is to contribute to quality assurance of all services from the perspectives of patients, healthcare workers and institutions. Demand of security and confidentiality on the communication between the different units and between the units and patients/relatives will be investigated.

Status is that risk analysis's regarding utilisation of the solutions is carried out. The main focus in the analysis was security challenges in the usage of the services and not the technical security. In addition a note on identified security requirements is written.

The autumn priorities are to carry out more risk analyses of the final technical solution, from both a user perspective and a technical perspective.

Sub-project 4 Telemedicine services

The projects goal is to provide the primary care units an effective channel of communication with both the GP's and the hospital using secure e-mail, access to electronically distributed guidance within wound treatment and to develop and distribute standardised tools for communication between primary and specialist healthcare.

Status is that three nursing homes can receive laboratory reports, epicrises etc. from the hospital. About 30 nurses have been trained to use the services. In addition one nursing home and one unit within home care are able to send secured e-mail to the GP and the hospital.

All existing hardware is mapped and we are working on whether update or replacement is needed.

We have not yet accomplished to provide the units with the possibility to send images to the Telemedicial wound ambulatory at the hospital. The main reason to this is that the units are connected as "thin clients" using RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) on Windows Terminal Server for Windows 2000. This solution does not allow users to access local disks when using the service which is required to upload images from a digital camera.

During summer we will design the final technical solution, test it and finally implement it. If this is achieved we will start training the nurses in using the digital cameras and software as soon as possible.

Sub-project 5 Trailing research

The projects goal is to evaluate and perform research on changes within organisational, technical and relational aspects. We will also follow the training process and the management of the project itself.

Status is that problems to be addressed on the different aspects are identified and that some collection of data is carried out. Our autumn focus will be to trail the different processes and collect data on what is happening. Data will be analysed continuously.

We wish you all a great summer!

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