SICOT Telediagnostic: History
In November 1997, Professor M. Hinsenkamp, then Treasurer of SICOT, began studying in his laboratory (LROT) the feasibility of establishing an inexpensive Telediagnostic network that could be used by developing countries. The workstations would be developed and supplied by SICOT to countries hosting a new Orthopaedics and Traumatology Teaching Centre (another SICOT project).
On 10 January 1998, Jean-Charles de Longueville, then a doctoral student in Applied Science at the LROT, presented a prototype at the meeting of the SICOT Board of Directors at the SICOT Head Office in Brussels.
After a more detailed market study, SICOT asked Hellea sprl to develop a full-scale test under the supervision of Prof. Hinsenkamp.
Brussels, Casablanca, Dakar and Kinshasa were equipped by Arnaud Trejbiez and Jean-Charles de Longueville. This process took place from autumn 1998 to spring 1999.
At the congress in Sydney, in April 1999, the project was first presented to the members of the SICOT International Committee, composed of the national delegates of all the member countries. They decided to pursue development of the network at least until the San Diego Congress in 2002. The Committee members also adopted the decision to include a dedicated server in the project architecture. The project was then presented to all SICOT members at a stand in the exhibition hall adjoining the congress.
It was decided to relaunch the project in autumn 1999. Several problems forced us to rethink the system.
The first step started in December 1999 with a dedicated server at the SICOT Head Office. This allowed medical files to be created by participant centres; they would then be dispatched and other participants could help the case resolution.
The nework has grown with the addition of new centres: Nairobi (Kenya), Lahore (Pakistan) and Gdansk (Poland).
The software was improved on the server side (demo, statistics, thumbnails) as well as on the client side (version 2 under GNU/Linux).
Gathered in Madrid in October 2000, SICOT's Executive Comittee designated the 3 next countries to get a workstation: Cameroon, Haiti and India.
In the last quarter of 2001, at the Paris meeting, the project entered a consolidation phase with the development of new tools on the server side. This justified a new part-timer.
In 2002, the project was present at the SICOT booth during the San Diego congress.
A first result of the dedicated worker was a third release of the software based on up-to-date technologies from that time.
In 2003, the project was present at the SICOT booth at the Cairo meeting.
Also in 2004, the project was present at the SICOT booth iduring the Havana meeting.
In 2005, the project was present at the SICOT booth at the Istanbul congress.
All national delegates were invited to join on request. The software switched from a client-server application towards a web1.0 application.
This was the fourth version of the software.
In 2006, the project was present at the SICOT booth at the Buenos Aires meeting.
All national delegates where included by default and all members were allowed to join on request.
In 2007, following the Marakech meeting, the application was open to all SICOT members through the web access http://telediag.sicot.org with the same credentials as on the main SICOT web site.
The user base is now unique across SICOT back-office applications.