UNESCO Chair of Telemedicine (UNES_CT) was founded in 1999. Undertakes international activities related to the promotion of the information society and fights against technology transfer problems having the role of an “intermediate body”. The Chair is the only existing one in the UNESCO and his activity is related with development and diffusion of Telemedicine and Information Society in Health Care in developing areas and undeveloped countries particularly South-America and Africa.
The expertise of the UNESCO chair of Telemedicine as a University Institution is based in the previous CATAI’s expertise founded in 1994 in the field of Information Society/Telemedicine with which is collaborating closely and from which received part of the sponsorship:
· Training and teaching aspects, to gain a minimal structured knowledge in Medical Informatics, have established the “Telemedicine Body of Knowledge” covering sociology, economics, technology transfer, technology and organizational issues, standardization, security and liability aspects in co-operation with the Universities of Queens-UK, Aveiro-PT, Belfast-IRL, Genova-IT, Innsbruck-AU, Udine-IT, Berlin-D, Athens-GR. CATAI published the first text-book of Telemedicine (http://www.teide.net/catai) in English, complemented with a CD multimedia material particularly design for developing countries, Their wold wide known by the Winter and Summer Courses of Telemedicine training following the “Telemedicine body of Knowledge". At the present moment the book is translated into 6 languages (SP,E,IT,GR,FR,D) and is published in Spanish with the PanAmerican Editorial with the title : “Telemedicine” 2001. Finally the latest advances are collected in the book of the Retevision-Auna edition entitle “Telemedicina, Situacion actual y prespectivas” 2002. Is participating in all editions of the European Telemedicine Glossary edited by the EC-DG Information Society. In the 4th Ed-2002 is the author of the Electronic Clinical Record.
· CATAI developed the Videophone network in the Canary Islands in 1991 for distant support. At the present it includes the best practice implementation pilots in phone medicine (oncology -particularly home-care- and psychiatry -particularly childhood psychiatry), Tele-ECG and Tele-ultrasounds -particularly obstetrics & gynaecology.
· Fist in the world (1991) to carry out distant DNA quantitation, it was applied to image analysis prognostic factors in breast cancer. Objective image analysis and prognostic factors have been incorporated into the regional breast cancer registry of 3000 patients (see above);
· CATAI was the promoter of the Centre of Excellence in Telemedicine, sponsored by Science Park DG-XIII, with enrolment of 3 continents: Europe, Africa and America to concentrate best practice examples as well as top experts to implement real world applications and development of hardware-software systems ready to be used. These activities link mainly technological firms of the UK and Germany.
The centre had leadered two EU projects (Leonardo-DG XXII ; Science Park-DGXIII) and participating in other two (DGXIII- Teleultrasound for developing countries; Leonardo-DGXXII Teaching Medical informatics). Leading in the Canary Islands and in the main land - Barcelona- a project on Telephonic Medicine and is currently participating in 5 EU projects ( Smart-USB; KOD or knowledge on demand, ASKLEPIOS, CHS or Citizen Home Services, CATAI-CTC)
UNESCO Chair of Telemedicine was involved in developing countries health support through the Midjan group-ITU-D working group of Telemedicine, TeleInViVo ultrasound devices with pilots in Katastan, Mali and Uganda. Promoting the network of Telemedicine together with Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, and participated in ITU-Developing Word Congress in Malta 1997, and Georgia Telemedicine meeting in 1999. Is currently actively working with South-America ( Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, Chile, Peru) and Africa (Uganda, Kenya)
Obtained awards:
· Economical initiatives, Canary islands 1995;
· Ordesa award in paediatrics 1989;
· Award Portugal-Spanish cooperation 1994;
· Award Royal Academy Medicine 1993 and 1999.
· Included in “Who is Who in the World” since 1996 scheduled up to 2000. Included in the 3rd Ed. of “Who is Who in Science and Engineering”.
· the Lattice Price 99 of ESF (European Science Foundation) in Innovation & Research in teaching, nominated by the STOA European Parliament Office.
Qualifications of key
personnel assigned to this project:
Prof.Dr.O.Ferrer-Roca, Full Professor of Pathology at the University of La Laguna, teaching telemedicine. Responsible of the UNESCO Chair of Telemedicine. Doctor in medicine graduated in the Central University of Barcelona receiving the PhD with honours, doctoral thesis directed by Dr. J.Egozcue . Having specialised in Pathology he has been trained in the USA (general), the UK (lung, thyroid, tropical pathology), FRANCE (osteoarticular), SWEDEN (breast cancer), and GERMANY (lymphomas). He has been working in the applied aspects of information technology to medicine since 1979 and in technology transfer aspects since 1992. He has worked in Egypt, Thailand, Japan, India, Burma, Kenya, Philippines, Virgin Islands, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venezuela. the UK, France, Italy, Greece and Greek islands, Malta, Croacia, Portugal and Madeira, Austria, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the States (Puerto Rico, California, Colorado, New York, Washington, Milwaukee).
He has worked in pathology since 1972 in the Clinic Hospital in Barcelona, Spain and is professor at the Central University of Barcelona. Since 1982 he has been the chair of Pathology for the Faculty of Medicine of the University of La Laguna in the Canary Islands, Spain and is currently teaching telemedicine in the Faculties of Medicine, Computer Sciences, and nurse training. He is expected to extend telemedicine teaching into the Faculty of Marine-boat engineering.
He has worked in the field of developing issues for ultraperipheral regions since 1982, including the role of telemedicine, economics, technology and health care in general. Having established the Videophone network for health care at a distance connecting all of the Canary islands, and he is currently developing a project for the ZEC - Special Economic Fiscal Regime area of the islands. In 1984 he established the central breast cancer tumour registry with prognostic factors that included image analysis in DNA, oestrogen-progesterone receptors and proliferative factors. He has published 126 scientific articles and 5 books on image analysis and technology including the first and only existing text-book of Telemedicine: “Handbook of Telemedicine, IOSpress, Amsterdam, 1998. His Publications are in the field of: pathology, tissue culture, tumour genetics and human genetics, electron microscopy, image analysis, ROC-analysis, artificial intelligence, newborn respiratory distress, epidemiology and public health including family incidence of breast cancer and survival curve analysis. Since 1992 the publications were related to economics in health-care, technology transfer and acceptance and best-practice applications in telemedicine. He has also developed the Image Analysis Software TEXCANTM for textural analysis, prognostic factors in tumor pathology and automatic cell classification.