Applications for validation

Subjects have been selected to be put through the validation stage of the development and implementation process, to prove their effectiveness in the clinical situation, and to check their acceptability and evaluate the economics of commerical exploitation.

The development of comunication netwrokds is accompanied by the development of standards for interoperation and the component systems. Telemedicine services should ideally follow the model of ISO/OSI, but with the addition of features that are specific to the requirements of mediciine and the data and records used in medicine. An essential part of the workplan is that proposed standards be exhaustively tested and long-term facilities be set up to carry out the tests.

For the time when systems and services are made available to the public, it is important that there is some indication of their suitability and reliability. When applied to medicine, forms of certification willb e required which will make clear the circumstances in which tests have been done and the degrees of reliablity with which the conclusions may be teated, together with any weak points. Information technology can be contrasted to drugs, where extensive testing is undertaken before drugs are released for the treatment of patients and where specialist pharmacists are available to support the practising clinician. Information technology still needs to mature: providing the logic and software are not fully understood, and the type of system that is used for diagnostics and planning is one of the least easy to prove. While eventually it will be necessary to establish a professional framework and authorised testing centres, within the scope of the AIM action a scheme to explore the technical problems be suffice.