Details on security and privacy issues can be found here in a RTF version of the summary document from the Uniquest Report.

Summary of Uniquest Report

Interoperability and integration considerations

To promote interoperability, where standards-based products are proposed, features that are provided by proprietary or pre-standard extensions should be avoided.
In the short-term, to communicate with endpoints on established networks, any new video consultation implementation may:

• be either standards-based, or if proprietary, provide a mechanism to allow audio and video sessions between the proprietary and standards-compliant endpoints;
• support a minimal subset of the following ITU standards: H.225; H.245; H.261 QCIF, H.263, Q.931; RTP; G.711; G.722; G.728; G.723; G.729; TCP/IP; and
• manufacturers will demonstrate interoperability using the stated minimum subset in a heterogeneous environment.

Technical Considerations

Where software-based products are proposed, careful consideration may be given to match the product requirements against PC specifications.

For diagnostic or complex clinical management (diagnostic quality VC), using hardware-based video conferencing, the following considerations relating to video cameras may be made:

• Image sensor: minimum ¼ type charge coupled device (CCD) image sensor;
• Horizontal resolution: 460 lines (PAL);
• Focus: autofocus;
• Optical zoom ratio: minimum 10x; and
• Standards-based far-end control of pan/tilt/zoom.

For non-diagnostic and non-complex clinical management (general quality VC), for software-based products (i.e. which use a webcam for video input) the following considerations may be made:

• Image sensor: complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) or CCD type;
• Minimum resolution: Video Graphics Array (VGA) (640x480); and
• Frame rate: 30 frames per second (FPS) (at VGA resolution).

For both diagnostic quality and non-diagnostic (general quality VC) use, the following considerations may be made:

• Choice of display should be made pragmatically depending on the circumstances. Contemporary display monitors are adequate for video conferencing;
• A frame rate of 25 FPS is adequate for primary care video consultations;
• For diagnostic or complex clinical management, using hardware-based standard definition (SD) VC, a minimum throughput of 384kbit/s should be available;
• For video consultations, to avoid poor performance, round-trip latency must be lower than 300ms;
• For video consultations, to avoid poor performance, packet loss should be less than 0.1%; and
• For clinical consultations, to avoid poor intelligibility, audio should be encoded at a minimum of 16kbit/s.