[A study of the security and transmission of medical information using JGN (Japan Gigabit Network)]

The telemedicine and teleconference, for example, make possible that the same qualities information can be accessed from the near facility and from the remote medical facility at 3 - 70 km away. The quality of medical care will be largely improved because high-speed network can be extended to rural areas. We set up an experimental network system to the telemedicine and teleconference using JGN (Japan Gigabit Network). The JGN is an ultra-high-speed network for the purpose of research and development. In this study, A 10 Mbps communication link of the JGN is used to transmission and reception of detailed and large medical information from remote places. Kanazawa University, NTT west kanazawa hospital, toyama city hospital and fukui red cross hospital are connected to the JGN through a router. IPsec system, which is the security protocol, is used for the security of data transmission between each facilities. In result, the date transmission rate using IPsec is 7 Mbps. The average translation rates of CT images (512 x 512, 16bit) and MRI images (256 x 256, 16bit) are 0.8 s/flame and 0.2 s/flame, respectively.