Overview of Telemedicine and Telehealth Applications

Telemedicine is helping many fields of medicine today. Some of them include radiology, pathology, primary care, psychiatry, dermatology, cardiology, oncology, surgery and dentistry. Some applications of telemedicine include:

Summary of the various applications of telemedicine; more details are given below (Source: TeleMedicineUK -http://www.telemedicineuk.org.uk/)

1. Data analysis: Telemonitoring can enable a patient's home to become a virtual hospital ward. Patients vital signs can be transmitted to a specialised centre and analysed with data from stored medical records. The patient could then receive a personalised report of his or her risk for diabetes, heart attack, colon cancer or other illnesses. For patients who have such conditions, follow-up care and monitoring are important. A patient's heart rhythm or glucose levels could be recorded and transmitted, and a personal report generated on the patient's progress. A nurse, based in the monitoring centre could be available 24 hours a day to provide reassurance and advice. A GP or specialist could be contacted if there are signs causing concern. Today, the patient would go to a local medical centre for these services. In the future, patients may be able to record and transmit vital signs and other relevant data to specialised centres directly from home. The need for hospital or nursing home care can therefore be minimised.

2. Medical evaluation: A patient may be examined by a local doctor or nurse, while a hospital physician or consultant participates via two-way television. The patient could join both practitioners in discussing the medical condition and methods of treatment. Consultations can range from primary to tertiary applications, depending on the patient's need. Examples include satellite-based speech pathology consultation; satellite-based monitoring of patients receiving dialysis; satellite transmission of data on the intracranial circulation of patients with cerebrovascular disease; satellite transmission of electrocardiograms; satellite-based retrieval and networking of cardiac diagnostic images in digital format; satellite transmission of radiographic images; and satellite-based examination of patients in many clinical disciplines.

3. Emergency consultation: In the future, for example, if a crisis develops during open-heart surgery, local doctors in the operating room could use telemedicine to contact a remote specialist for guidance in successful resolution of the crisis.

4. Patient education: Using telemedicine, nurses, dieticians and physical and occupational therapists can deliver cost-effective, personalised information and follow-up care to patients.

5. Medical education: Professional isolation is a major reason why rural communities have difficulty recruiting and retaining physicians. Telemedicine helps doctors keep up with the latest findings in their field and remain in contact with colleagues. By providing such linkages, telemedicine can help resolve the uneven distribution of physicians observed in many countries.

6. Research collaboration: Rapid, high-quality transmission of medical images and information will enhance collaboration of researchers throughout the UK and the world.

7. The future: Developments in mobile telephones means that mobile videotelephony will become commonplace. Such technology has obvious applications for delivery of health and social care. Work is ongoing into incorporating health-monitoring devices into clothing. Link these to your videophone and no matter where you are, you could gain access to high quality medical advice.

Telemedicine and Telehealth
© 2000 Dr Abdul Roudsari, Mr Roger Hicks & Dr Maged Kamel Boulos
MIM Centre, School of Informatics,
and Dept of Radiography
City University, London, UK
All Rights Reserved.

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This page was last modified November 25, 2000
a.v.roudsari@city.ac.uk and r.w.hicks@city.ac.uk
Module Editor and Web Designer: M.Nabih-Kamel-Boulos@city.ac.uk