TeleCardio Mobile: Development of Platform-independent Telemedicine Applications

TeleCardio-FBC is a telemedicine system developed to enable cardiologists at the Unit of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery (UCCV/FBC) to cooperate with other physicians. The system will provide specialized medical care in cardiology for patients who live far from metropolitan areas, reducing costs and enabling better follow-up of discharged patients. The system was designed considering desktop computers as the only computational platform. As a consequence, the access to the system functionalities on different computer platforms is not possible. The project TeleCardio Mobile consists of the development of two platform-independent systems, M-TeleCardio and WapCardio, using an approach for reuse of software components. M-TeleCardio will allow the access to the functionalities of TeleCardio-FBC through personal digital assistants, like palmtops and laptops connected to the Internet by wireless modem cards. WapCardio will supply important information, for instance, remote consultation requests and results of medical procedures, to physicians on mobile telephones using the WAP technology (Wireless Application Protocol). The project TeleCardio Mobile aims to reduce the cost of development and deployment of telemedicine applications while improving the medical assistance, allowing a larger number of people to have specialized medical care.