Use of Internet in Medical Research

1
Use of Internet in Medical Research

• Dr Anuj Sharma
• Consultant Microbiologist, Sir Ganga Ram
  Hospital, Delhi
• dranuj_at_vsnl.com

2
The Internet Boom
Worldwide Internet users 164 Million (March
1999) Available bandwith today up to max. 40
GB/sec end of 2001 up to 1.28 TB/sec Electronic
business revenue 26 billion Projections By
2002, Forrester projects that sales of goods and
services over the Internet will zoom to more than
350 billion
Source Forrester March 1999
3
INDIA 1.4 million Internet subscribers (30 June
2000)
Lakhs
GOI figures
4
Net Space Indian subscribers
5
Bandwidth bottlenecks

• Communication infrastructure, end user
• Traditional technologies
• Analogue modem (dial up) - home users
• ISDN - 64/128 kbps
• Leased line
• Satellite

6
Bandwidth solutions

• New technologies
• DSL
• gt200 times faster, normal copper wires,
  simultaneous voice and fax along with high-speed
  data transfer, always online)
• Asymmetric, Symmetric
• Cable
• upto 30 Mbps, 250-1000 times faster, shared
  bandwidth, less secure, 2-way cables)
• set-top box (Rs 5,000) cable modem (Rs 15,000)
• Mobile (WAP)

7
Bandwidth problems in India

• 90 of Indian traffic - US sites local content
• Fibre Optic Lines
• Sankhya Vahini 77,000 km of fibre-optic lines - 2
  years
• Indian Railways (66,800 km tracks)
• Power Grid corp - 45,000 km along electricity
  lines leased to VSNL
• Gateways satellite / undersea cable
• ISPs allowed own gateways (gtRs 20 crore per
  gateway)
• Net Charges
• Internet subscription (Access charges), Free?
• Phone charges (Rs 24 / hour)
• Last mile bottleneck

8
Internet The ICE age

• Information
• Medical databases
• Websites/newsletters
• Services
• Communication
• email
• discussion groups
• e-commerce
• B2B
• B2C

9
The Analysts projection (1998)
Gartner Group The Internet is now well
established within business By the year 2000
the Internet will be the primary vehicle for data
communication The Web will develop from
passive publications to an interactive computing
environment

Trade volume (billion USD)
Source META Group 1998
10
Importance of Internet in Medical Research

• Information needs for Medical Research
• Selection of topic
• Review of Literature
• Research Design
• Techniques
• Discussion

11
Information Resources

• Libraries
• Index/Abstracts Index Medicus, Biological
  Abstracts
• Journals
• Cumbersome
• Time consuming
• Change
• Analogue gtgt Digital gtgt Virtual gtgt ?

12
Information Resources on the Net

• Intellectual Property Rights
• IPR is obsolete on the Net
• Paid vs Free Information
• Medline - Index, Abstracts, Full text
• CDROM
• Pubmed
• Electronic Journals - Free to print subscribers
• Online/Email Discussion groups
• Video conferencing / Chats
• Telemedicine

13
Information Resources

• MDConsult
• www.MDConsult.com
• Search Engines
• www.Google.com
• www.Yahoo.com
• www.altavista.com
• Health websites
• dotcoms
• HON code

14
Training

• Proper and systematic training
• Manpower and resources
• Importance of internet
• awareness
• e-commerce
• maintaining security

15
On the Net

• Vast amount of information available
• Search
• Relevant information
• Reliability - Source
• Dissemination

16
(No Transcript)