HIE Wire   back to index

Online-trial to evaluate the benefit of telemedicine — invitation to participate

Dear specialist(s) in health telematics,

On 1 April 2001 the Institute of Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology of the University of Cologne started an international online-study for the evaluation of the medical benefit of health-telematic applications in close cooperation with the Institute of Aerospace Medicine of the German Aerospace Institute.

The study is based on the DELPHI-process, a consensus finding method designed to assess new technologies. In three questionnaires the participants are asked to estimate the medical benefit of health telematic projects. The projects are divided in groups of applications of your special interest.

A german DELPHI-study for the evaluation of costs and benefits of health telematics has been performed by our institute in 2000. Four German experts evaluated the medical benefit in this study. The results are published on the TM-DELPHI website (www.tm-delphi.com ).

To gain valid results and to eliminate national bias in the DELPHI-process a large number of international participants in the study is indispensable.

Thus we gently like to ask you:

• first, to participate in our study if you are a specialist in health telematics;
• second, to forward this mail to any specialist in health telematics you know or you work with;  and
• third, if you run a (tele-)medical or a similar based website, to publish a link to our study on your website. An Icon can be found on the TM-DELPHI website.

The link is: www.tm-delphi.com

The registration period started on April 1 and ends on May 31 2001. The first questionnaire begins on May 1st.

Results of the trial will be published on the website in September 2001.

Please support our trial.

Thank you very much in advance. Don't hesitate to contact us.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Karl W. Lauterbach
Director

Dr Markus Lindlar
Email: markus.lindlar@medizin.uni-koeln.de
Institute of Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology
University of Cologne
Gleueler Strasse 176-178
D-50935 Cologne
Germany

Dipl. Ing. Dittmar Padeken
German Aerospace Center
Institute of Aerospace Medicine
Linder Hoehe
D-51147 Cologne
Germany