Designing a Local Area Network for Telemedicine : Design and implementation of radio equipment for telemdicine

Abstract

The aim of this thesis was to improve the method of consultation and operation of patients in Shisong Cardiac Center by introducing a Local Area Network for telemedicine in order to link the two remote hospitals that will enable them to share information in real time basis without introducing delay on the network. This was done by hiring high bandwidth of plastic optical fiber from Camtel and using them as the main transmission medium while the VSAT link was created as a standby to the optical fiber so that in case of any destruction on the optical fiber link, it will be use to transmit the signals.

In order to ensure that this design was cost effective and therefore maintaining the functionality of the Cardiac Center, the following steps were taken in to consideration. Firstly, very high bandwidth of plastic optical fiber was hired from Camtel and these signals were given priority over any other signals provided by Camtel. Secondly, the network was encrypted in such a manner that only two persons can have access to the signals. Intruders cannot be able to have access to the network to cause confusion within the signal transmission since all the finger prints of the two users are snapped and an alarm is set to produce a sound if the finger prints presented on the equipment are not the right one snapped.