Considerations of Telemedicine in the Delivery of Modern Healthcare

Abstract

Telecommunication technologies have made telemedicine a modern health delivery system. Telemedicine enhances home telehealth services as specialty care, patient consultations, remote patient monitoring, and medical education without the patients having to leave their homes. Urban medical centers have used telemedicine to expand access to specialist services by centralizing health care providers to assist patients seen by their primary care providers. This paper provides a brief history of telemedicine; explains how telemedicine works; covers a few cases of telemedicine implementation, identifies lessons learned, discusses some current issues of telemedicine, and concludes with some limitations of telemedicine.