MOSCOW - Sept. 7, 2010 - Cisco today announced that Valaam Monastery has deployed the Cisco Tandberg Edge 85 MXP high-definition video conferencing system in the monastery's recently opened telemedicine center.
The Tandberg solution, now provided by the Cisco TelePresence Technology Group, connects the remote monastery with mainland hospitals so that local practitioners can rely on the experience of Russian and international experts, delivered via high-quality video. Valaam Monastery is located on Valaam Island in Russian Karelia, the largest island in Lake Ladoga, 22 kilometers (13.7 miles) from the mainland and 220 kilometers (137 miles) from St. Petersburg.
The Island of Valaam receives more than 110,000 visitors every year, and the new center is already providing teleconsultations for pilgrims and tourists as well as monks and other local patients. In the first two weeks of its operation, 20 sessions were organized in the outpatient medical room, including consultations with specialists in St. Petersburg and Moscow hospitals. In addition, the center carried out a multipoint three-party consultation with the G.I. Turner Orthopedic R&D Institute in St. Petersburg and the A.N. Burdenko Neurosurgery Institute of the Russian Medical Academy. During that session, the professors attended a 9-year-old disabled girl trying to regain her ability to walk.
Highlights / Key Facts:
- The Cisco Tandberg Edge 85 MXP system consists of a codec, a microphone and a PrecisionHD camera. It provides an excellent user experience with true-to-life quality for rich interaction and collaboration.
- Specialists at the new telemedicine center plan to expand links with the nearby clinics of Karelia, where an advanced telemedicine network has been installed, as well as with additional hospitals in St. Petersburg, Moscow and other Russian cities.
- In the near future, there are also plans to set up a mobile telemedicine center at Valaam to offer medical care in remote areas, as some hermitages of the monastery are located on small islands of the Valaam archipelago.
- The mobile center will be based on a compact portable Cisco Tandberg Tactical system with a set of medical devices and a portable antenna.
- The solution was delivered and installed by system integrator NVision Group, a Cisco Gold Certified Partner and Tandberg Platinum Partner in Russia. The project is supported by the Russian Telemedicine Association, the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation, the Russian National Glory Center and Russian Railways, a national leader in telemedicine.
Supporting Quotes:
- Valery Leonidovich Stolyar, executive secretary of the Russian Telemedicine Association, project participant
- Stein Ramsli, head of Cisco TelePresence Technology Group in Russia and CIS
"The essence of telemedicine is to offer a general practitioner the capability to get consultations from specialists located in leading medical centers. Today, when necessary, we can provide the monastery and the general public at Valaam, as well as pilgrims and tourists, with the best Russian and international specialists via prescheduled and ad hoc teleconsultations. This technology can also be used to monitor the health of Valaam residents who return to the island after medical treatment in other places. This is especially important because every year for several months Valaam is cut off from the mainland while disease can hit at any time."
"Cisco's Tandberg solution is installed in many leading telemedicine centers in Russia and abroad. It has proved to be a reliable tool for high-quality video conferencing. In particular, we closely cooperate with the Russian Telemedicine Association, which unites more than 120 clinics, hospitals and medical centers that use video communications to improve medical care in Russia and other CIS countries. We hope that our experience and continuously evolving technologies, which have already showed positive results in the new outpatient medical room, will be applied in similar projects and will provide residents of Russia's remote areas with access to medical services."
Tags, Keywords:
Cisco, Tandberg, Russia, Valaam Island, Valaam Monastery, telemedicine, video
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Supporting Resources:
- Watch the video report on the telemedicine center launch, recorded during the visit of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia to Valaam at: http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1221647.html.
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