Telemedicine: Essential factors to improve usage, delivery and implementation of Health IT

Telemedicine is potentially one of the most popular information and communication technology which addresses some of the challenges faced by both developed and developing countries in providing accessible, cost-effective, high-quality health care services. The World Health Organization has defined telemedicine as “the delivery of health care services, where distance is a critical factor, by all health care 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 health care providers, all in the interests of advancing the health of individuals and their communities”. The definition of telemedicine will be evolved with the advancement of technology but the fundamental elements of telemedicine will remain persistent. These foundation segments include the purpose to provide clinical support, the intention to overcome geographical barriers, connecting users who are not in the same physical location, the use of various types of information and communication technologies, and the goal to improve health outcomes.

Health and Human Services’ Secretary Mike Leavitt mentioned that “…to link all health records through an inter-operable system that protects privacy as it connects patients, providers, and payers. Resulting in fewer medical mistakes, less hassle, lower costs, and better health." Thus, technologist needs to consider four major areas to accelerate the development and adoption of Health IT, namely consumer empowerment, chronic care, bio-surveillance, and electronic health records. To burden the scope, the delivery of remote health services is used for a variety of purposes. It can be adopted for specialist referral services, direct patient care, remote patient monitoring, medical education and mentoring, and consumer medical and health information. The practice might be divergent but all of them lean on the interrelationship between Health Information Technology and telemedicine.

As the spread of telemedicine usage and implementation has been incremental, there has been an evolving need for the collaboration between telemedicine and health information technology. There has been a need for establishing and maintaining networked, organizational relationships to work together toward a common goal of providing healthcare. Additionally, the potential areas of collaborated have to be addressed to exchange health information, taking advantage of already established networks for providing clinical care as well as using already established secure, high bandwidth networks for other health technology applications. Further, the financial sustainability of telemedicine management and employment has to be focused on and analyzed to build a convincing business case for electronic health records. Finally, telemedicine will play an instrumental role in the development of healthcare in society and can revolutionize medical care in underdeveloped communities.