Pharmacy News Article

Dec. 1A Norfolk, Neb.-based company that specializes in what it calls "telemedicine" recently opened a second office in the Scott Technology Incubator at the Peter Kiewit Institute.

American Educational Telecommunications makes applications and systems that transmit medical images and that allow real-time consultations between patients and medical professionals.

The new company, CenatMed, will use existing technologies, such as wireless networks, to develop new products that will enhance medical devices.

American Educational Telecommunications allows rural patients and health care providers to work with medical professionals at regional or urban medical centers, said Tino Bellanca, operations manager for CenatMed. AET's technologies also facilitate distance learning to train medical professionals in other parts of the world, he said.

The company's technologies help ensure that rural populations have access to the same quality of medical care as those admitted to hospitals, Bellanca said.

Exporting these technologies to other countries could have broad implications for U.S. foreign relations, he said.

"Medicine can act as an ambassador to other countries," he said.

Because American medicine is highly regarded worldwide, sharing advances in medical technology with other nations can have an impact "in ways diplomacy can't," he said.

He noted the large number of foreign students who come to study medicine in the United States as proof of the nation's prowess in the field. Medicine can act as "a good ambassador of peace in this world of chaos we're in."

CenatMed will serve as a research arm for the parent company. Its focus on developing devices that use existing technologies should accelerate movement of the devices into the market, Bellanca said. It also should lower the research and development costs, he said.

The company has begun work on its first new device, which he declined to describe, that it plans to test at a local medical center.

Contact the writer: 444-1085, stefanie.monge@owh.com