Telemedicine refers to the use of electronic communication technologies to provide clinical care. Telemedicine enables a physician or specialist at one site to deliver e-health, diagnose patients, give intra-operative assistance, provide therapy or consult with another physicians or paramedical personnel at a remote site. The aim of Telemedicine is to provide expert-based health care to understaffed remote medical sites and to provide advanced emergency care through modern telecommunication and information technologies. There are many different disciplines in telemedicine such as Teleradiology, Telepathology, Teleconsultation, Teleconferencing and Telepsychiatry

 

 

 

 

Telemedicine can benefit isolated communities and areas where access to specialized care is difficult or near to impossible. In terms of attaining equitable health care in remote and isolated areas, telemedicine software applications are of particular interest in several ways:

 

• Physician referrals can be reduced by as much as 80% by connecting primary care physicians to specialists.

• Can improve access to specialty care in some areas, particularly in rural and hilly areas.

• Can improve the quality of care to patients through more timely delivery of medical services to the point of care.

 

 

 

 

 

There are four main components of Telemetric, all of which are applicable to e-health:

1. Remote database access/update

2. Tele-monitoring

3. Tele-Video Conferencing

4. Case Handling/Message Passing