"I think it's clear that patients gain a tremendous amount when physicians are able to communicate and share critical diagnostic information and images in real time," said Dr. David Teitel, chief of pediatric cardiology at UC San Francisco."

Previously, contact between U.S. and Chinese physicians was limited to exchange of information over a period of days via email and fax. By contrast, at today's demonstration, U.S. and Chinese physicians were able to work together to craft a treatment plan for two seriously ill children.

In today's consult, Teitel and Dr. Daniel Bernstein of Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford discussed a 12-year-old girl who has been suffering from shortness of breath, fatigue and abnormal heart rhythms. They spoke about treatment for what had been diagnosed as viral myocarditis, an inflammation of the muscular walls of the heart.

Treatment was also reviewed for a male infant who was born by Cesarean section on June 13 and is suffering from brain damage due to a lack of oxygen and decreased blood flow at birth.

Today's communication between physicians relied on MBone, or IP Multicast Backbone technology, which allows for real-time communication and simultaneous sharing of information, including images and photos, medical records and other graphics.

The project was organized by the Bridge to Asia Foundation, a California-based not-for-profit organization that supports education and research in developing countries in Asia. Funding was provided by the AT&T Foundation.

The technical teams that established the link and provided technical support in Palo Alto and Xian were led by Dr. Robert Yung, Sun Microsystem's chief technology officer for Asia. "The team's main objective is to demonstrate how healthcare professionals can take advantage of the power of the Internet and the newly developed Chinese network," said Yung.

UCSF Stanford Health Care treats over 1,500 international patients annually. The four hospitals, which are in San Francisco and Palo Alto, California have 1,350 available beds. Annually, they log about 54,000 inpatient admissions and one million visits by outpatients.

Additional press materials including photos of participating U.S. physicians are available at: http://telemed.stanford.edu