Bangalore: Teleradiology Solutions, a Bangalore-based company providing IT-enabled services in the health care sector, has signed an agreement with the Albert Einstein Medical Centre (affiliated with Thomas Jefferson University), in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, according to an official press release.

According to the agreement, the Indian company will provide emergency teleradiologic consultations to the hospital's acute care trauma centre. The Philadelphia hospital will send its emergency diagnostic scans (CAT scans, MRI scans and Ultrasounds) to Bangalore for interpretation, and a report will immediately be sent back to the hospital, thereby directly influencing patient care across the globe, the release said.

Dr Arjun Kalyanpur, chief executive and founder of Teleradiology Solutions, stated that his company was already providing similar services to six other hospitals in the United States.

Teleradiology consists of transmitting radiologic images (X-rays, CAT scans and MRI scans) over the Internet, so that the expertise of a radiologist at another location can be utilised. It is used frequently within the United States and is sometimes used by hospitals in Asia to obtain expert second opinions from specialists in the US, the release said.

However this is the first instance of radiology images being sent from the US to India for diagnosis. The radiologist in India has to be certified and licensed in the US in order to be able to provide this service, only a very small number of such individuals exist.

The company plans to grow by hiring additional radiologists, and to extend their services to other hospitals in the US as well as within Asia and in other parts of the world that require such services, the release added.