The BabyLink Project
Neurophysiological monitoring of brain function is required for many newborn babies in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). This mostly involves electroencephalography (EEG), carried out by trained technologists. Interpretation of these recordings must be carried out by neurophysiologists who are expert in neonatal EEG analysis. The NICUs in Ireland are widely dispersed and the vast majority have no access to this expertise currently. This deficit will not improve significantly in the foreseeable future. In light of this, the question addressed is: can a technological solution to this problem be provided?
The challenge is to exploit recent advances in computing and information technology in the development of a distributed web-based teleneurophysiology application to enable a neurophysiologist interpret, and report on, EEGs in these babies promptly from a remote site. This would allow several NICUs to have access to the same diagnostic service. It would also allow optimal utilisation of a neurophysiologist’s time, a very limited resource in Ireland.
We are aware that similar solutions have been developed that depend on dedicated high bandwidth point-to-point links between hospitals. However, this does not solve the general case where available bandwidth is limited. We propose a novel solution, in collaboration with the Boole Centre for Research in Informatics, that allows patient data to be streamed from the bedside to the expert regardless of their physical location.
