Welcome to the Moldova Telemedicine Platform

This site has been created in the frame of the Moldovan-Swiss Perinatology Project that aims to improve perinatal health in Moldova. The project is jointly implemented by the Swiss Centre for International Health (SCIH) and the Association of Perinatal Medicine in the Republic of Moldova (AMP) and funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

The Moldova telemedicine platform has been designed to foster information exchange and communication between professionals working in the health sector with the following functionalities:
• Create discussion groups related to various health topics. The initial field of interests of the users are telemedicine in perinatal health and health technology management
• Within each discussion group the group members can:
• present and discuss cases (medical or others) in order to exchange information and expert opinions
• organise consultation services where group members present cases to colleagues who provide their expertise as a second opinion.
• use the Moldova telemedicine platform as a Content Management System to collect, store and retrieve various type of documents in a virtual library within the fields of interest of each of the discussion groups.
• use the Moldova telemedicine platform for teaching and training purposes in the domain of health or health sector related occupations through consultation of medical cases, downloadable materials, etc.

Other interested professionals are most welcome to use the services provided by the Moldova telemedicine platform for their own benefit and create their own discussion groups.

The Moldova telemedicine platform is using the free open source medical collaboration software, iPath initially developed at the Institute of Pathology of the University of Basel, Switzerland. iPath is currently being used by many telemedicine networks in Europe, America, Africa and Asia.

The Moldova telemedicine platform is hosted within the SCIH iPath Community server supported by the Basel based company BasysData. For further inquires you may contact the community administrator Mr Marc Blunier.

Getting Started
Professionals with the same interest can meet and communicate together in so called user groups. There are discussion groups which are open to the public and invite all interested people to join in. Other groups are closed and invite their members for participation personally. For a list of already existing groups click here.

Registration
Those who are interested to become active on this platform have to create a user account and register while filling in the registration form. After registration you will receive an email. Follow the instructions in that email.

Join an existing Group
All discussions and exchange of information on iPath take place inside specific "discussion groups". Please consult the full group list. To join any of these groups, please directly contact the group moderator mentioned in the respective group by mail. He/She will advice you about objectives, activities and rules applied in the group.

Create a new Group
For those who want to create their own group and who have already registered please contact the community administrator requesting to open a new group. The community administrator needs to know the desired name for the new group, user name of the moderator(s). When the group appears on the list, the group settings can be defined under Admin.

User Manual
An English and Romanian User Manual is available explaining the basic steps of registration, creating cases, provide comments etc.
news
Migration of iPath 2.0 to a new provider
Dear User, As already announced on the homepage on February 27th 2023, the iPath platform (hereinafter: iPath) can no longer be hosted by the previous provider (BASYS DATA). To ensure the continued existence of iPath, the iPath Telemedicine Network was founded on May, 29th 2017 as a non-profit, liable company (iPath Telemedicine Network gGmbH; https://www.ipathnetwork.org; hereinafter: iPath-gGmbH). For the above reason of discontinued hosting by BASYS DATA, iPath had to be migrated to a new provider (PAICON; https://paicon.com/). All groups were informed by iPath gGmbH by e-mail about this change of provider and agreed to the transfer of their data. The transfer will be accompanied by an update by PAICON, free of charge for iPath, which corresponds to a complete reprogramming of the platform and will provide it with numerous new functionalities (iPath 4.0). Unfortunately, the old iPath version is no longer compatible with the new version. For this reason, the existing data cannot be transferred to the new system (iPath 4.0). After the migration, PAICON will try keeping the old data accessible on the PAICON server in their previous form to ensure working as usual. However, this cannot be guaranteed. Another consequence of the update is that all groups and users willing to use iPath3.0 must re-register on the PAICON server. The old usernames and passwords cannot be transferred for data protection reasons. The new access codes must comply with the PAICON specifications. Instructions will be published on the homepage ((https://www.ipathnetwork.org;) as soon as the transfer has been completed. The moderators of all groups will then be informed by e-mail.
2024-01-22
Future of iPath
To find out more information about the further development of iPath, contact the following email addresses. Best regards Monika Hubler adam@pathologie-ingolstadt.de peter.fritz23@arcor.de
2023-09-15
2023-02-27
2023-02-27
Update iPath 4.0
Dear iPath Users,

As already announced, the previous provider, Basys Data, will no longer be hosting the iPath platform in the future. In order to ensure the continued existence of the iPath platform (hereinafter: iPath), the non-profit liable company iPath Telemedicine Network gGmbH (https://www.ipathnetwork.org; hereinafter: iPath-gGmbH) was founded some time ago in order to be able to act as a contractual partner for a new provider.

In the meantime, a new partner has been found in consolidated companies PAICON Cloud GmbH and PAICON GmbH (PAICON), which will also be able to take over the hosting of iPath in the future. PAICON was founded by former employees of the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) in Heidelberg and operates a GDPR-compliant cloud. The main business purpose of the PAICON companies is the development of medical software as well as the operation of a medical cloud platform for data-driven disease management.

In addition, the original iPath software (iPath 2.1.15) is not only outdated, but can also no longer be updated, so that reprogramming is mandatory (iPath 4.0).

PAICON has already developed a new iPath version (iPath 4.0) in cooperation with iPath-gGmbH and integrated it into its platform. As of today, iPath 4.0 has new additional functions, which will be extended in the future. No development costs were incurred by the iPath network or its users. In the future, iPath should also profit from the further developments of the PAICON platform. For this purpose, a cooperation agreement between PAICON and iPath-gGmbH was signed on 23.06.2022.

PAICON pursues a commercial business purpose, which among other issues deals with biomedical research, but also supports humanitarian projects such as iPath. In return for the support and hosting, PAICON shall therefore receive a right of use, according to the cooperation agreement, to the data of the iPath groups. Of course, this only applies to those groups and users who wish to continue working with iPath3.0.

This agreement would allow commercially interested parties to work with the anonymised or pseudonymised data on the PAICON platform, e.g. to optimise machine learning procedures or to exclude technical or biological variances that could otherwise be considered diagnostic features, although they only have to do with differences in delivery, but not with the actual data, the "content" of the cases.

Technical measures implemented by PAICON prevent the data itself from being downloaded from the platform or coming into the disposal of third parties. The data is used solely on the PAICON server infrastructure. Only the results obtained, but not the source data located on the platform, can go to commercial interested parties.

However, the migration of the groups from Basys Data to PAICON can only take place with the consent of the groups and users. A migration to another server will be necessary in any case because iPath, even in its old form (iPath 2.0), will no longer be hosted by Basys Data in the future. If you want to continue working with iPath2.0, you will have to take over moderation, hosting, service and IT support yourself. The final migration has not yet been determined, but should take place in the first quarter of 2023.

As you are a moderator of a group, we are contacting you and asking to discuss in your group whether you agree to a migration of your group to the PAICON server. It should be clarified that there will be no organisational change for you. Your contact partner is and remains iPath Telemedicine Network gGmbH.

Whether the previous data can be transferred depends on several factors. The most important is to ensure that all old data is anonymised or at least pseudonymised, otherwise the transfer of any data to third parties (in this case from Basys Data to PAICON) is not permitted for data protection reasons. The following are two examples of data sets for illustration; the first can be considered pseudonymised and the second not:

  1. histopathological image with
    a) diagnosis
    b) Age in years at diagnosis
    c) Gender
    d) Ethnicity
  2. photo of an X-ray with blurred name of the person
    a) Diagnosis
    b) Age in years at diagnosis
    c) Gender
    d) Ethnicity

In the age of machine learning as well as artificial intelligence, the difference between anonymised and pseudonymised is unfortunately, at least from a legal point of view, no longer fully given; therefore, even genuinely anonymised data is treated as pseudonymised for security purposes. Whether the old data can be processed IT-wise in such a way that it can be transferred to iPath3.0 without individual processing cannot yet be foreseen. However, we are working on a solution to park the old data in its previous form and keep it accessible if you want to use iPath 3.0 for the future.

All existing users will need to re-register in their groups on the iPath 4.0 platform. This includes agreeing to both the cooperation agreement and the new terms of use, which are still being revised at the moment.

iPath-gGmbH and PAICON are already in active exchange on how the previous data can be saved. A loss of the old data stock should be prevented in any case, but this cannot be ruled out in the event of a server failure with the current solution at Basys Data.

If you decide to do so, we need your written consent for data protection reasons (signed letter as PDF document by e-mail), in which you confirm that your group agrees to the migration to the PAICON server, that the data is available in at least pseudonymised form and that it may be used according to the specifications of the cooperation agreement. A letter proposal can be requested as a Word document at: office@ipathnetwork.org.

If your group does not want to use iPath 4.0, please also inform us and the company Basys Data https://www.basysdata.ch; (e-mail: info@basysdata.ch), which will ensure that your data is not migrated to the new server. However, you will then have to take care of a new provider and the hosting of your data yourself in the future.

Please send your reply as soon as possible to:

iPath Telemedicine Network gGmbH
Management: Monika Hubler
Mittlere Strasse 16/4
D-79576 Weil am Rhein
office@ipathnetwork.org

2022-12-20
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