On September 16, Chinese Navy purpose-built hospital ship “Peace Ark” embarked on a medical service mission “Harmonious Mission – 2011”. It will call on ports in Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and other countries in Caribbean. This is Navy hospital ship’s first visit to the Caribbean. On board Peace Ark, the medical information system jointly developed by Zhejiang University and PLA Navy General Hospital is serving for the mission.
With its hardware and equipment equivalent of a Class-A hospital, Peace Ark demonstrates China’s capacity of independent development. For “Harmonious Mission – 2011”, Peace Ark puts into use the medical information system consisting of digital medical records system, PDA-based automatic information collection system, fast classification system, maritime injury clinical pathway system and so on. These sub-systems are connected to a platform integrating CT, DR, clinical testing equipment, surgical robots, image archiving, picture archiving and communications system, lab information system and so on. In addition, a newly-developed HD telemedicine system can exchange and share data with hospitals on shore and make long-distance diagnosis. So the hospital ship is ready to get real-time support from hospitals on shore anytime and anywhere to ensure global coverage of health care services.