History of Telemedicine in Serbia

Through the cooperation of Prosmart experts and Pathology and Forensics Institute staff, headed by Institute chief Col. Prof. Petar Spasic PhD and Prosmart General Manager Mr. Slavisa Mijuskovic, the following activities have been implemented:

• In late October 1997. the first telemedicine link with the Clinical Center in Nis had been made.
• With the help of donations secured by the Institute chief, a TM Center had been equipped and a computer network for diagnostic stations (14 computers) was set up at the Institute.
• In mid-January 1998 with the use of our own resources and with the help of donations, we managed to equip the Pathologic Anatomy Dept. in AH Nis. After the necessary training of the staff, on 01.04.1998. the first permanent Yugoslav pathohistological and cytological telediagnostic link was set up. By the end of 1999 some 80 teleconsultation sessions had been held with the AH in Nis.
• Soon after, the Army Hospital in Nis started using the existing system for teledermatology diagnostics.
• During the Radiology Days conference held in Subotica we organized the transfer of digitized CT images of a patient from the Subotica Clinical Hospital Center, with the simultaneous transfer of relative case data to the Center at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade, thus making the first tele-radiology consultation in the country.
• In the past period, the project has been successfully presented at two international conferences and a dozen domestic symposia.
• The presentation of the project was particularly successful at the 4th European Congress of Telepathology held on June 19-20 1998 in Udine (Italy). The paper illustrating the project has been published by the "Advance in pathologic anatomy" publication indexed by the Index Medicus and Medline. The project was supposed to be presented at the world congress held in June 1999 in Greece, but due to the well know circumstances that befell our country we were unable to attend and the paper was only published in the monograph "Recent advance in Telecommunications".
• However, due recognition was given to the project during a visit by a delegation of the Italian government and the Italian Telemedicine Committee to the Military Medical Academy and to Prosmart Ltd.
• The automation of administrative and diagnostic processes in the Pathology Dept. and the Medical Cytology and Cytogenetics Dept. of the Pathology and Forensics Institute was implemented.
• The quality of the solutions provided has been acknowledged by the Federal Ministry for Development, Science and Environment Protection and we have subsequently implemented a copy of our Biopsy Database at the Pathology and Histology Institute of the Novi Sad Medical School.
• In the past period, a number of histopathology consultations have been organized through the MMA Telemedicine Center involving the Pathology Institute of the Udine University (Italy) and AFIP - Washington (US) - the largest diagnostic institution in this area of medicine.
• Experimental connections and transmissions have been set up with the Pathology departments of the Clinical Hospital Center Bežanijska Kosa, CHC Podgorica, Oncology Institute in Sremska Kamenica, etc.
• Our work has been acknowledged Mr. K. Kaiser in his book "Telepathology" published by "Springer" editors.
• Preparation of a one day international meeting on Telemedicine organized by the Medical Academy of the Serbian Medical Society, the MMA and the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences held on June 19th 2000 at the Military Medical Academy.