Recent advances: Telemedicine

doi:10.1136/bmj.323.7312.557

BMJ 2001;323:557-560 ( 8 September )

Clinical review

Recent advances

Telemedicine

Richard Wootton.

Correspondence to: R Wootton r.wootton@pobox.com

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

As telecommunication technology has advanced and costs have declined over the past decade, there has been a steady growthin telemedicine. Much of this growth, however, has been in theform of feasibility studies and pilot trials. As a result thereis little convincing evidence of the cost effectiveness of manyapplications, apart from teleradiology (box). This paper reviewsrecent evidence and describes clinical applications where thereis early evidence that telemedicine is not only of clinical benefitbut cost effectivetoo.

What is telemedicine?

Telemedicine is an umbrella term that encompasses any medical activity involving an element of distance. In its commonly understoodsense, in which a doctor-patient interaction involves telecommunication,it goes back at least to the use of ship to shore radio for givingmedical advice to sea captains. A few years ago the term telemedicinebegan to be supplanted by the term telehealth, which was thoughtto be more . . . [Full text of this article]

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Telemedicine in developing countries: Steven M Edworthy
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