THE University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus will, by year-end, offer a telemedicine certification programme for persons working in the country’s health and allied sectors.

It is expected that 2,000 people will register for this newly-introduced course of study, and according to Dr Winston Davidson, Head of the Telemedicine Research and Development Unit based at UWI, the certification will “give the particular health personnel a greater capacity to manage his or her health information because it is providing them with skills”.

“We want to start off training 2,000 by the end of 2005. Over three years, we wish to train 6,000 (and) by December 2005, we want to have 2,000 capable of going online,” Davidson said.

He argued that having persons trained in telemedicine will be a prerequisite for the delivery of exporting health services, a goal that the telemedicine programme was looking to achieve.

Davidson told JIS News that there is a distinct possibility that the telemedicine certification programme will result in spin-offs for Jamaica to aggressively enter the market of health tourism.

“This creates the conditions for Jamaica to export services, for example if you look at the home, health tourism component, Jamaica presently has a very strategic window as an outsourcing area for health delivery services in the areas of wellness, health risk reduction, therapies, convalescence, and rehabilitation.”

He said this was so because the cost of health care in Jamaica was “almost 40 times less than the cost in the United States, and almost 25 times less than the cost in Europe which means that they can in fact get cheaper health care at very high international standards”.

The telemedicine certification programme would therefore target the wide gamut of people employed in the Jamaican health community, ranging from doctors and nurses to pharmacists and medical technologists. The programme would also seek to include practitioners of alternative medicine as well as community health aides.

The programme, Davidson explained, is created at three levels: basic, intermediate, and advanced, and is meant to complement the telemedicine network platform known as The Caribbean Model, an integrated technological system, which was designed over the course of several years.

The Model employs the use of a variety of technologies including the telephone, an electronic medical record system which patients will be able to access, and multi-media computer capabilities such as media clips and video-conferencing.

“This training programme is wholly designed by us,” Davidson continued. “There is no other training like this in the world. but this training programme is part of the conceptual framework of our Caribbean Model.”

Meanwhile, Davidson said three agencies are competing to fund the programme, which should get underway in another three to four months.

As it relates to the implementation of the modules to be taught to the students who register for the programme, Davidson said: “We at the University have a long-term strategic relationship with Infoserv Institute of Technology. Infoserv is a part of the programme and therefore will be the implementation arm.”

Outlining the course content of the three-level telemedicine certification programme, Davidson said the curriculum contained 24 modules, two of which were optional.

“The modules have to do with first getting a vision or concept of telemedicine and tele-health, then understanding the Caribbean Model in terms of how all the platforms have been integrated. “Then the first thing we look at is the telephone, which is the only ubiquitous technology,” Davidson explained.

“We are not dealing with the telephone in terms of the use of the ordinary telephone,” he continued, ” but we are dealing with Internet Protocol telephony, because it is this, which is going to give the doctor the global reach. Then we are looking at medical emergencies and how you use telephony in such instances as well as non-emergency medicals. Then we are going to look at the application or practice of telephony skills and in utilising these skills, the participant will also be given information communication technology skills which are universally accepted,” he added.

Meanwhile, Davidson explained that intermediate certification would move on to the fundamentals of Internet skills, and then networking skills and how they are going to relate to others on the network.

“We are then going to provide web site management skills to see how it will work out cheaper in cutting record keeping costs.”

According to Davidson, electronic medical systems are the way of the future for all kinds of medical practitioners. He pointed out that hospitals in Massachusetts in the United States, were able to realise $2.5 billion within a one-year period by using an electronic medical system.

“We are also going to teach multimedia and digital video production through media clips to develop clips for health television,” he remarked.

Advanced certification, Davidson continued, would incorporate greater networking skills “so that if the health professional wants to multiply himself in a network, he has the skills to do so. Then we are going to train them in personal area network and digital assistance so that all these digital devices can be used to exchange communication with the doctor, for example.

“We will also provide them with information that details budgeting and cost control, electronic research and development methods, interpersonal relations, and marketing.” The benefits to persons who choose to pursue the telemedicine certification programme will be tangible,” Davidson added.