Nearly 12 months after their first collaborative medical outreach project, the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) and GE Healthcare (GE) are in rural northwest India again to utilise advances in cardiovascular ultrasound technology to enhance medical education for healthcare providers caring for the underserved populations in India.
A team of ASE member sonographers and physicians travelled to New Delhi to train Indian physicians in image acquisition while testing the possibilities of remote medical education. The educational event is collaboration with Medanta—The Medicity located in Gurgaon, NCR. An additional team of ASE sonographers is assisting in training via the internet and StatVideo’s EchoBoxes, equipment designed to stream cardiac ultrasound images over the Web. Twenty Indian physicians are receiving training on-site, while half of the physicians are also benefitting from additional training by ASE sonographers providing real-time instruction remotely from the US. This technology, is assisting them to see the images the Indian physicians scanned, providing the ability to instruct the physicians on improved acquisition in real-time.
The healthcare providers have included two new corporate sponsors CoreSound Imaging and StatVideo, to expand the reach from the rural setting with long-distance, web-based technology to the remote sonographers. The project was organised by Dr Partho P Sengupta, a New York-based cardiologist, a member of the Board of ASE, and the India liaison for ASE. The local training was coordinated by Dr Manish Bansal, Medanta—The Medicity.
“This educational activity sets a benchmark in delivering innovative internet-based teleconsultation and teleeducation program to physicians,” said Dr Sengupta. “The physicians registered for a novel training module: Value of Interactive Scanning for Improving Outcome of New Learners (ASE-VISION). This programme ushers newer training possibilities in integration of tele-echocardiography with activities that range from real-time online assessments, long distance consultations, information sharing and education of physicians in remote areas of the world.”
EH News Bureau