International medical education between Hawaii and Thailand over Internet2.

Abstract

International medical education sessions have been successfully conducted by videoconferencing using Internet2. The sessions were between two tertiary care medical centres, in Honolulu and Bangkok. However, video quality was lower than for similar sessions using ISDN and audience satisfaction was less. The main reasons for the lower quality were network congestion and bandwidth allocation by the videoconferencing equipment. Software to ensure quality of service is available, but is not easy to implement. There were also network security problems and the costs were high. Our international videoconferences averaged 40-50 hours per year, an activity level at which connection costs were lower for ISDN than for Internet2. It appears that Internet2 videoconferencing for medical education is best reserved for academic institutions that have other high-bandwidth network requirements.