Case Study
Mokpo City Medical Center
An AR- based Telemedicine System to Democratize Healthcare in Remote Regions
Challenges – Democratizing Healthcare with AR telemedicine.
Sinan County has about 43,000 people living on more than 880 small islands. The geography of the region makes it very hard for anyone to have a clinic nearby, and many of the islands do not have medical facilities. This situation has pushed the Health Care Deprivation Index to rank first in the country. With this pressing challenge, the government of Sinan has acquired many ambulance helicopters. Still, despite the improvements in decreasing avoidable mortality, the weather makes it nearly impossible to fly 27% of the year. An aging population made it harder to find experienced professionals, as doctors concentrated in urban areas. On average, Sinan medical professionals have one year of experience.
Mokpo City Medical Center – A Hospital on a mission to expand healthcare coverage
Mokpo City Medical Center is a leading healthcare provider in South Korea, serving a wide range of patients.
The center faced a significant challenge in providing specialized medical care to patients in remote areas, which threatened their well-being.
Introduction
Mokpo City Medical Center's mission is to provide modern medicine to rural areas, including fishing villages located on remote islands. They have been visiting people in need, but despite their many efforts, they still feel that they could do more if provided with the right tools. Together with Mokpo National University and VIRNECT they embarked on a journey to make specialists available for the most unaccessible areas of Sinan County.
Golden Hour – Matter of Life & Death
VIRNECT Remote was customized to provide improved telediagnosis and treatment. This was achieved by tackling two areas of concern.
- VIRNECT updated the software to work with end-to-end encrypted medical history databases;
- Halved latency from two to one second to achieve video streaming on 4K quality video over 5G networks with a 120 Mbps use.
The system enabled the provision of treatment to a 63-year-old man suffering from pneumothorax after being hit by a wall that collapsed due to strong winds. A young general practitioner confirmed the diagnosis through a chest X-ray but could not proceed with the treatment due to a lack of knowledge. However, remote specialists using AR-based technology allowed for appropriate chest tube insertion, oxygen, and IV treatments. This critical support kept the patient stable while he was reached by an ambulance helicopter.
Critical Decision through Real-time Medical Data and Advice
On the expert side, the VIRNECT solution also allows the seamless visualization of oxygen saturation levels and the patient’s medical history, allowing them to share crucial information for medical decisions.
The system has also favored knowledge spillover, with many general practitioners becoming experts in the most common local cases. Above all, people’s quality of life has improved.
Mokpo City Medical Center's deployment of VIRNECT Remote was a great success in providing adequate medical care to patients in remote areas. By allowing general practitioners to collaborate with remote specialists, patients are now being treated faster and stabilized within the golden time.