What is iPath

iPath-Network is a web application service offered by iPath Telemedicine-network

Non-profit limeted liability company, hosted on the server of the Basys Data company. The aim of this service is to offer a hosted and supported platform based on iPath, an open source collaboration platform which was originally developed at the University of Basel. iPath is being actively used in 32 countries, in the domains "consultation", "teaching" and "research".

 

iPath is one of the few, if not the only telemedicine platform based on open source software. The system is stable, easy to use and is not highly demanding of resources. For that reason it is used in many developing countries, where connectivity may be difficult or high bandwidth unavailable.

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At the beginning iPath was only used for diagnostics in the areas of histopathology and cytopathology. After the platform had become more established, the iPath network was grouped into communities, and started being used in many more medical fields, and also for the education of doctors and their co-workers.

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Tumor boards etc. began to take place as teleconferences. The users have access to the cases prior to the meetings through their group membership. For the transmission of speech we use Skype, which works well in developing countries. Open source solutions like Mconf and openmeeting have shown to be unsatisfactory so far.