The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine has been at the forefront of the field of telehealth solutions for many years. They've been working on improving remote health screenings with the use of technology since the 1990s and they've been a partner with Royal Caribbean to help keep the Royal Caribbean work force healthy.
Royal Caribbean receives remote dermatology consultations from the University of Miami for consultations of its employees while they are on the cruise ships, in both real time and with store-and-forward technology. Scott Simmons, director of telehealth for the University of Miami is excited about the possibilities, “Dermatology is one that works really well with store-and-forward".
Royal Caribbean's ships have consumer-grade digital cameras along with encrypted software to ensure privacy and security for the patients. To make this all work, the ships need Internet bandwidth of 384 kbps to 512 kbps to make the link between the ship and the university facility work correctly.
With satellite internet onboard cruise ships already a costly and slow affair, Simmons thinks there's better tech coming to help, “The software-based videoconferencing systems are getting better".
