The system supports telepsychiatry sessions between a doctor and a patient, as well as consultations among social workers, doctors, police, psychologists and other health care professionals. Telehealth magazine named the system one of 1998's top 10 telemedicine applications. The hospitals and community centers link to the system via 128-Kbps Integrated Services Digital Network service. Each hospital has two PCs with 17-inch monitors for videoconferencing, and each community center has one.
Rural residents can visit the closest community center to attend a session.
The PCs run the Live100 desktop videoconferencing system from PictureTel Corp. of Andover, Mass., under Microsoft Windows 95. The setup includes software, a camera, speakerphone and a video board that compresses and decompresses 15 to 20 frames per second, Spencer said. The department held more than 450 sessions last year and expects to hold more than 700 this year, Spencer said. Mass. Evaluation data resides in a Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 database. The system has a 98 percent approval rating, he said.