GIS and Earth Observation University

The latter is deployed to provide medical services to rural and remote hospitals through the integration of medical science with Information Communication Technologies (ICT)[1]. Technically, Telemedicine services consist of employing multimedia software, computer network systems and telecommunication technologies, whereby parties do not have physical contact. The application of space technologies enabled more accessible healthcare services, thanks to the use of cost-effective ICT that enabled the implementation of different systems in different areas within the health sector such as medical R&D transfer, health planning, expertise exchange, and health education[2]. However, the most crucial application of Telemedicine in the healthcare sector is the substitution of the traditional healthcare means to provide services in isolated and geographically challenging areas as well as culturally challenging regions (like regions where another woman healthcare provider could only treat the woman). Telemedicine is also crucial to serve people and ameliorate their health in places with healthcare facilities deficit due to different factors, mainly due to the lack of infrastructure and the scarcity of technical and human resources and thus, the “infrastructure” was substituted by “infostructure”[3]. Due to its fundamental social impact, Telemedicine application in remote areas and limited resources’ countries may be considered a form of a non-financial return on investment on space programs, which may contribute to countries national social welfare. Such a benefit could be illustrated, through the pilot project developed by the “Microgravity Centre” at the “Faculty of Engineering at Pontificia University Catholic of Rio Sul” and implemented in 2007, within the Amazon Region. The project highlights the impact of satellites technologies, specifically ICT role in providing specialized medical assistance within this remote area to detect skin cancer cases and other dermatological issues. The succeeded first mission in the Amazon Region was followed in 2008 by a second Telemedicine campaign within the same region. The mission that involved ICT services combined with biomedical engineering, which involved remote opinions by specialists, has succeeded to detect many patients with skin disorders. Out of the total 176 consultations, 21,2% were inclusive cases, which required the remote specialist to conduct further medical investigations to make the pathological analysis of the biopsies to identify cancerous cases[4]. The cited practical example proves the efficiency of satellite technologies’ applications to design and implement Telemedicine mechanisms to overcome health matters in socially, geographically and economically challenged communities. An extensive literature review conducted by Siddequee et al. (2019) on Telemedicine projects in Nepal demonstrated that Telemedicine services could fill the existing gaps in traditional healthcare. The authors emphasized the role of Telemedicine to overcome the impeding factors for people from accessing quality health, as low-income level, scarcity of health workforce and facilities and the geographical disadvantage. The same research paper stressed on the crucial Telemedicine services’ benefits - if deployed on a large-scale in these countries.[5] Nonetheless, Writing this paper amid the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak, It is crucial to highlight the role of Telemedicine services in managing pandemics disasters.