ABSTRACT
The activities in Oil & gas industries have always been developed in remote and isolated locations especially in countries where health and hygiene conditions are very poor with difficult access to the advanced medical resources.
The constant development of communication systems allows the implementation of technological resources that maintain the communication between these remote locations with the most advanced hospitals, crossing the world in seconds and providing accurate diagnosis and guidelines for treatments.
Several solutions can be found on the market to help the physician to communicate with a colleague: all of them are valid in specific situations. We will firstly distinguish between vertical and horizontal solutions.
"Vertical" relates to platforms dedicated to medical tele-consultation in individual speciailties: teleradiology, tele-cardiology, tele-pathology, tele-dermatology.
"Horizontal" solutions: All systems that can manage any kind of medical data are grouped under this category: Telephone and fax; Videoconferencing (VC) systems and E-mail messages
The technological and organisational activation of the requesting health centres is a critical factor of success, from the technological viewpoint, a dominant element is connectivity.
Our tele consultation system has been utilised to date by Eni in remote places has provided:
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Support to the doctor with the diagnosis and treatment of routine complaints;
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High quality medical assistance in more difficult remote sites, thereby contributing to improve the living conditions of expatriates and local employees;
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New approach to handling emergencies, so as to reduce the number of assisted repatriations;
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General improvement of healthcare in remote areas.
