Telepathology on Solomon Islands

In June 2001, we were approached by an emigrated Swiss surgeon who has been working at the National Referral Hospital in Honiara for over 8 years. Their current service for pathology consists of sendeing specimen to Brisbane (AUS) for processing and diagnostics. This process is very unsatisfying as it takes often 8 weeks or more for the diagnosis to return to Honiara and the Royal Brisbane Hospital has announced a long time a go that they cannot provide this service free of charge ad infinitum.

In September 2001, a small histology laboratory could be established in Honiara and specimen can now be prepared there. As there is no pathologist in the State of Solomon Islands who could diagnose these specimen, we are now trying to find out if it is possible to give these diagnosis over internet.

Pictures of the slides are taken with an Nikon OptiPhot microscope and a Nikon CoolPix 990 in Honiara and then sent to our iPath-Server in Basel where they are reviewed by a number of Pathologists from Europe and USA. If additional pictures are needed for a diagnosis they are requested from Honiara and added to the existing case on the server.

4th International Conference on Successes and Failures in Telehealth

Dr. Rooney Jagilly from the National Referral Hospital in Honiara presented the project at the 4th International Conference on Successes and Failures in Telehealth in Brisbane, Australia, held from 22nd to 23rd July 2004. It was hosted by the Centre for Online Health of the University of Queensland. The presentation was awarded the best presentation of session.

Dr Jagilly at the presentation	The certficate	The award
Photos R. Jagilly, 2004 more details at hermannoberli.ch