HINT project: a BPM teleconsultation and telemonitoring platform

This paper describes a novel approach for teleconsultation and telemonitoring in healthcare domain. Teleconsulting for diagnostic images involves much more than merely transmitting images and information between two points called hub and spoke. It needs to accomplish a lot of tasks, among them: rapid access to radiological reports and second opinions, remote consulting among Physicians, improved patient care, access to complex tools for post processing and computer-aided diagnosis, support for research and training projects, ties between isolated healthcare providers and busier or more experienced providers, 24-h coverage. The HINT project provides a real-time monitoring of the patient's clinical data and alerting in case of emergencies. The application is fully integrated with all IHE compliant RIS and PACS systems. The workflow management system, integrated in the platform, permits to manage a multiplicity of different scenarios in one application, allowing fast prototyping, process changing and reuse of subprocesses.