Advanced satellite-based e-Learning system to support Continuing Medical Education

SKYMED is an initiative launched in 2000 dedicated to developing and operate a pilot service phase of an advanced satellite-based e-Learning system to support Continuing Medical Education (CME) services. The final objective of the project was the set-up and validation of satellite services that outperform those presently available via terrestrial internet systems and the definition of CME services as part of Telbios' spin-off company portfolio. The project dealt with several aspects: technical, organizational, educational and strategic, all of which made the project very challenging. From a technical point of view, the system is based on a multi-terminal service center derived from the integration of the Euromednet Telemedicine Operation Centre (TOC) based on DESNET platform and SkyplexNet for multicasting/broadcasting. Part of the SKYMED project was to define and develop a suitable multimedia interface for on-line and off-line training activities, providing textual chat interactions among the different client sites. Live lectures and presentations would increase the immediacy of the content and enhance the users' feel of 'really being there'. So far SKYMED has distributed six courses (one on Medical Imaging, the others on Ambulatory Surgery) and CME, in general, to seven hospitals, to ten individual users in the Veneto Region in Italy, 2 individual sites outside Italy (UK and the Netherlands). The involvement of public healthcare institutions and private individuals implied the management, in the frame of the project, of organizational and logistic aspects peculiar to the implementation of e-learning services. The SKYMED challenge was to be an appropriate and cost-effective means of meeting life-long learning needs of healthcare professional, through a variety of independent formats and delivery media (satellite broadcast, content package delivery, etc.). Technology- driven self-study CME sources based on distributed, or distance-learning multimedia broadband platforms thus look like the viable cost-efficient and user-friendly alternative to conventional methods. SKYMED, as e-learning solution, becomes important in CME because it can avoid bridge gaps (both national and international, cultural and language gaps), it can bring education to the health professional, and it empowers the learner for more effective and individualized learning.