TELEMEDICINE

Telemedicine



Telemedicine

Introduction

Telemedicine is increasingly cited as part of the emerging area of e-health for example:- the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT & the INTERNET) to provide health care. The World Health Organisation definition of telemedicine is: The delivery of healthcare services, where distance is a factor, by all healthcare professionals using information and communication technologies for the exchange of valid information for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and injuries, research and evaluation, and for the continuing education of healthcare providers, all in the interests of advancing the health of individuals and their communities(Brown 1998 509-519).

Telemedicine

Telematics is the use of telecommunications technologies to solve a wide variety of problems, remotely. Healthcare Telemedicine is the application of telematics to medicine to facilitate healthcare delivery.

Telemedicine can be defined as the investigation, monitoring and management of patients, using systems which allow ready access to expert advice and to patient information, no matter where the patient or relevant information is located.

This involves the transfer of medical information from one location to another. Increasingly, computer technology will allow much of the work currently being carried out in hospital, to be carried out in people's homes, in an effort not only to improve the efficiency and standards of patient care, but to reduce its cost drastically. (Kokdemir Gorkey 2002 86-92)

There are four main components of telematics, all of which are applicable to healthcare:

Remote database access/update

Tele-monitoring

Tele-Video Conferencing

Case Handling/Message Passing

Telecare, a term often associated with telemedicine, can be defined as: ...the use of information and communication systems to give patients with or without their healthcare professional or informal carer access to information sources wherever they are located frequently;within patients' place of residence

Contributions of telemedicine are

Remote real-time assessments: of and consultations with patients for example, at accident scenes, Accident & Emergency triage and psychiatric services

Reducing waiting lists: digital images stored electronically for non-real-time diagnosis enabling a greater volume of cases to be assessed by a distributed network of professionals, for example, dermatological images taken in general practice

Accessible expert advice: using call-centre and telephone services to provide people with quality controlled expert advice and information.

Information is obtained from the Health management Information Consortium (HMIC) database and from desk-based Web research. Readers are advised to consider further information

SWOT analysis

Strengths

Telemedicine is a new way of delivering healthcare allowing a change from a centralised service to one which is patient centred,resource efficient and where decisions are made at a local level close to the patient. The term telemedicine is used when referring to a number of applications of information and communication technology (ICT) to medicine. Some of these, like teleradiology or 3D simluation software, are advanced information management techniques and, although extremely valuable in contributing to improved healthcare, are not telemedicine. We reserve the term telemedicine for "remote, telematic healthcare" which involves patients more closely in their healthcare process.

Weaknesses

Advances in information, communication and bioengineering technologies will change the ways healthcare is delivered. Most believe that Telemedicine and Telecare technology has proved itself both technically and ...