IGU 2014 Book of Abstracts IGU2014 – 0334

Transforming Remote Island Medical Care by Deploying Broadband Network

Uemura M. Akita University, Faculty of Education and Human

This study examines the transformation of remote island medical care by the deployment of a broadband network. Many remote islands are short of doctors, and the available doctors cannot afford to perform every medical procedure. Especially in isolated remote islands, patients find it difficult to go to large mainland hospitals. To help eliminate distance barriers and services, telemedicine plays a significant role in remote island medical care. Telemedicine involves sending radiographic images (X-ray, CT, MR, and others) from remote island community clinics to affiliated mainland hospitals. In this setup, the necessary infrastructure must be built for steady and high- speed telecommunications towards smoother medical care. This study focuses on Ogasawara village, where a fibre-optic cable was installed in 2011. Ogasawara is a village in Ogasawara Subprefecture, Tokyo Metropolis, Japan; it governs the Bonin Islands (Muko-jima, Chichi-jima, and Haha-jima), Volcano Island, and three remote islands. The Bonin Islands are some 1,000 km directly south of Tokyo, Japan. Transport from the main Japanese islands to Chichi-jima is the Ogasawara Maru liner, run by Ogasawara Marine Transportation. The ship leaves from Takeshiba Pier in Tokyo Bay, and the trip takes around 25.5 hours. The ship has four or five scheduled crossings each month. Ogasawara village urged the Japanese government to lay a fibre-optic cable from Chichi-jima to mainland Tokyo, and the request was approved with the supplementary budget of 10 billion yen as a project for fiscal year 2009. In 2011, Ogasawara village changed their Internet communication lines from satellite communication channel to submarine optical cable. Chihi-jima and Haha-jima each have one community clinic. Each clinic provides telemedical care in cooperation with mainland Tokyo hospitals. In a survey conducted in 2013, sending a radiographic image took two hours via the narrowband in Chichi-jima and Haha-jima. However, after the fibre-optic cable was laid, transmission time could be reduced by half. At the reduction of the transmission time, the number of telemedicine equipment increased drastically. Thus, this study has revealed that the deployment of a broadband network significantly influences remote island medical care.