MEDICAL DATA-TRANSMISSION USING SWITCHED TELEPHONE NETWORK

Background. The article describes a method of transmitting data from an outpatients' clinic to a health centre, using the public telephone network. Despite intensive collecting, processing and transmitting of data within the health service, this activity still functions in a very improvised manner, as regards the possibilities of computer science. Methods. Various protocols for transmitting of data were used and the results of measuring the transmission time as a function of the type of protocol and the hour of day were shown. Results. The time for transmitting a body of medical data was longest in the morning, when the telephone service is generally heavily used, while in the afternoon and at night the number of mistakes in transmission noticeably decreased. Conclusions. It was seen that the Slovene telephone network can be effectively used for the transmission of data, but only for a relatively small number of participants. A greater number of participants in the medical information service will demand the construction of a special purpose network.