EMN

  • Status
    Ongoing
  • Status date
    2008-06-19
Objectives

The European Medical Network (for short EMN) has been formed to create a distance-learning service for the medical professions in Europe; at its core a menu-driven digital satellite broadcast combined with an Internet Service.


The Pilot project has been launched in order to assess and verify:



  • Acceptance of the proposed service by the target groups

  • Operational feasibility throughout the entire value chain

  • Financial feasibility of all separate steps as pro rata Business Plan budgets
Challenges

The principal issues which the project addresses are:



  • technical reliability and quality of transmission in different formats

  • professional relevance and user-friendliness for target groups
Benefits

The Pilot Project should prove acceptance of the proposed service within the European Medical Community as a cost-effective and user-friendly medium to complement traditional media of Continuing Medical Education and thus enable EMN to migrate the pilot into a permanent operational service.

Features

Display of educational audio-visual programmes on PC and TV simultaneously:



  • Internet Connection

  • Email Client

  • AV Streaming from the NOC-MPEG1 (service from TFC, which broadcasts audio and video titles via satellite to closed user groups using a multicast protocol

  • Package Delivery (service from TFC, which broadcasts files in a reliable manner from the CMC server via satellite to closed user groups- point to multipoint- and stores the files on the client PC. The service requires a return path to the CMC in order to request missing dates)


















 


 

Plan

During the pilot phase EMN will offer four different originally produced programmes:



  • Palliativmedizin fuer terminal kranke Tumorpatienten

  • Interventional Cardiology: CurrentPractice, Techniques and the Prevention of Restenosis by Brachytherapy

  • Les Antiretroviraux: Indications Therapeutiques

  • Bone Nailing and Plating Techniques

in three different language versions (English, French, German) in a linear (video) format as well as in English in an interactive format (based on Lotus Learning Space software platform), to a total of 100 physicians in five different countries (Germany, France, UK, Netherlands and Switzerland).The necessary hardware and software will be made available to the users for a period of no less than four weeks.


The transmissions will be carried out in two batches to 50 respective down-link sites as follows:



  • Batch 1: Germany/Switzerland, February1999

  • Batch 2: France/UK/Netherlands, April1999
Current status

The EMN pilot project for ARTES-3 has been concluded by the end of 2001.


The basic concept of delivering CME (Continuing Medical Education) content vie satellite or satellite-supported online connections to the physicians home has well been accepted by the target community.


Overall conclusion is that IP Multicast via satellite for a large region (such as W-Europe) is the most efficient way to distribute high data volume.