News on HPCN and the European Commission October-November 1997

The Parallel Computing Initiative II (PCI-II) is an ESPRIT project financed by the European Commission, aimed to promote among the European industries the application of parallel systems and HPC technology in general. The PCI-II program brings together 10 different projects with one objective: to enhance the performance of European industries by using parallel technology.

The telemedicine concept is slowly but sure breaking through into the consciousness of both physicians and industrials. Information technologists are occupied with developing orderly structures for efficient and save usage of high computing tools to the advantage of medical applications. Indeed, the future telemedical information society should not be allowed to evolve in an ad hoc manner, according to Dr. Andrew Marsh. The Euromed project manager has taken up his responsibilities. This has resulted in the creation of an overall framework which consists of twenty building blocks amounting into the 39 steps leading up to a realistic image of the 21st century health care community. Let's have a look at this thrilling scenario...

In 1996, the strongly felt needs for a sound information and knowledge base in the health telematics sector were given concrete form in the foundation of the European Health Telematics Observatory (EHTO). A few years earlier, the AIM (Advanced Informatics in Medicine) Community had already taken under its wings the various projects dealing with the new ideas, evolutions and research concerning the development of health telematics and telemedicine. On the other hand, the European Commission expressed her desire for a general vision on the information technology infrastructure towards the 21st century in three major documents, namely the Delors White Book, the Bangemann Report and the Green Paper. It is in this light that the present activities of the EHTO should be considered.

Telemedicine is moving into an area where HPC, telematics and the Internet are working together to help physicians. EUROMED, a three year project supported by the European Commission which started out in January 1996, is reconciling HPCN technology to medical applications with increasing success. Physicians in the remotest areas of Europe are on the verge of stepping into the 'Brave New World' of Virtual Medical Worlds with a little help from a simple PC.

The Euromed telemedicine project aims at creating a Virtual Medical World where all medical information is available everywhere were it is needed. However revolutionary the concept of telemedicine may be, both patients and physicians most certainly do not rejoice at the idea of having scattered, highly confidential medical data throughout the World Wide Web open to consultation for every curious eye, indiscreet or not. How is the EUROMED project dealing with the problem of safely sending its Virtual Medical Worlds information over the Internet? Euromed-ETS should provide the solution.