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New Telemedicine Information Service

3 February 2004. The service was relaunched as the Telemedicine and E-health Information Service in January 2004. Please see the the new announcement for details.

2 Feb 2001. The new service is provided by The University of Portsmouth and The British Library; sponsored by the UK Departments of Health. It aims: to bring together those working in the field of telemedicine and telecare in the UK; to encourage them to share information and experience; and to provide an information resource on telemedicine activity in the UK.

The Telemedicine Information Service gives access to information about all aspects of telemedicine including: organisations involved in telemedicine whether as hosts for projects, information facilities, publishers or suppliers of equipment people involved in telemedicine as contacts for organisations and projects publications about telemedicine including articles, chapters, books, reports, surveys, theses and videos equipment used for telemedicine.

Components

The Telemedicine Information Service website is an update of an award-winning website, incorporating the National Database of Telemedicine and its existing categories of 'projects' and 'companies'. The purpose of the database is to provide a background source of information to anyone researching the field or proposing a trial or a larger scale implementation of telemedicine. The listed projects focus on the use of the technology to bring new services to patients in hospitals, GP surgeries and in the home. The database includes projects that are providing telemedical services to patients, but also lists research and development work on the infrastructure required to support telemedicine.

Redesigned, and now fully searchable, and with additional categories of 'people', 'publications' and 'equipment'. Developed by staff at the Healthcare Computing Group at the University of Portsmouth.

Email discussion list

The website includes a link to an electronic discussion list set up for members of the UK Telemedicine community. The home page for the telemedicine list includes joining instructions and an archive.

Phone service at 020-7412 7489
People without access to the internet, including the public, can still access information from the database by contacting the Telemedicine Information Service at the British Library via a new phone service. It is operated by British Library Health Care Information Service staff, and also has 24-hour voicemail available. Queries can also be faxed to 020-7412 7954.

'Telemedicine updates', a current awareness service from the Medline database (subscription service; free samples available). Published quarterly by The British Library, including references about telemedicine added to the Medline database, plus author and subject indexes. The update is available in print, on disk, and via email. Annual subscription is £28 for UK and EU, £33 elsewhere. For a free sample, contact the British Library. on phone +44 (0)1937 546361 or fax +44 (0)1937 546458 (please state format required).