Mr. Kumar founded Milpitas-based TeleVital two years ago to bring the technology, now called VitalWeb, to the marketplace. VitalWeb is Web-based software that allows a patient's vital signs to be monitored from remote locations. With the help of angel funding along the way, TeleVital recently completed several clinical trials on the software. The company already is talking about eventual applications during wartime, in the wake of natural disasters, toward the education of doctors who might be separated by continents -- and even for patients in space.

Kishore Kumar first designed the Web-based software for a doctor in the United States to be able to monitor the vital signs of his daughter, Deepika, in real time as she underwent various treatments each summer in the family's native India.

"In this case, I knew the technology was possible, so I had to do it," says Mr. Kumar.

Doctors initially had prescribed years of physical therapy as the only cure for nerve injuries Deepika had suffered to her shoulder. Now 11, Deepika is considered 80 percent recovered

In Deepika's case, when the vital signs revealed that a particular therapy wasn't working, the therapy would be changed almost instantly. Once Mr. Kumar invented the technology, he showed it to friends who told him it had a potential market in the health-care arena.

"At that point, I went full force on developing this technology," Mr. Kumar says.

In January, the Milpitas company achieved a milestone when the technology was used to allow an anesthesiologist at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical College to monitor in real time the physiological data of a patient undergoing a gall bladder operation 3,000 miles away in Sucua, Ecuador.

A member of the surgical team in Ecuador used a laptop computer to log into the TeleVital Web site. An electrocardiograph was affixed to the patient's extremities, and a pulse oximetry clip that had been fastened to the patient's index finger was then attached to the computer. The streaming data from the devices was then transmitted via a satellite uplink from the mobile operating room to an anesthesiologist in Virginia for real-time viewing on her computer.

"The experience of sitting at my desktop computer in Virginia monitoring a patient's vital signs during an operation in Ecuador was quite remarkable," says Dr. Lynne Gehr, anesthesiologist at the University Medical College in Virginia who participated in the study.

"The VitalWeb link provided the same information that I would have received if I had been physically in the operating room," Dr. Gehr says.

TeleVital is a small company whose 10 employees are in business as a result of an unspecified amount of angel funding. But the prospects loom large as organizations such as NASA, the U.S. Army, Kaiser Permanente and other health-care organizations are all testing the equipment for use in space, on the battlefield, in the operating room, in an ambulance and for home health care, says Bill Stelma, business development leader for TeleVital.

The company started to get a lot of attention after its debut at the American Telemedicine Association conference last year in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., says Mr. Stelma.

VitalWeb works mostly through the Internet, allowing a subscriber to record vital signs or read them in real time using conventional equipment such as a typical EKG.

VitalWeb supports several wired and wireless devices such as EKG, blood pressure, pulse oximetry and spirometry. The service could be used in almost any location, such as an ambulance, which would allow a physician in the emergency department to get a head start reading a patient's vital signs.

Dr. Gehr says this technology would allow a specialist to remotely monitor the vital signs of a patient when he couldn't travel to the patient's location. Such technology would be particularly helpful in an emergency such as a natural disaster or terrorist attack.

To that end, NASA is testing the equipment to monitor a patient in space and to guide medical care.

Kaiser, meanwhile, is testing the technology to discover how it might be used in home health care or other arenas, says Dr. Daniel Navarro, technology analyst with Kaiser Permanente.

Currently, the largest market for TeleVital is in countries with socialized medicine such as India, says Mr. Kumar. As a large country with a dispersed population, this technology would be used to help doctors deliver some care from a distance.

Another potential market is the education of foreign doctors. Medical school students in foreign countries can work more closely with physicians in the United States or elsewhere, says Dinesh Bajaj, vice president of sales and marketing for TeleVital.

Vital signs currently are read on a desktop personal computer or a laptop. However, the company is advancing the technology to be transmitted wirelessly to a handheld computer or cell phone, enabling physicians to get information practically anywhere, says Yair Lurie, a co-founder of Televital who specializes in business development.

Price for the services could range from $5 to $10,000, depending on needs.

VitalWeb requires a computer with an Internet connection, a Web browser and medical device with a communications port. And because it's completely Web-based, there's no need to download, install or upgrade software, says Mr. Stelma.