In 1996, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its report Telemedicine: A Guide to Assessing Telecommunications for Health Care. In that report, the IOM Committee on Evaluating Clinical Applications of Telemedicine found telemedicine is similar in most respects to other technologies for which better evidence of effectiveness is also being demanded. Telemedicine, however, has some special characteristics-shared with information technologies generally-that warrant particular notice from evaluators and decision makers. Since that time, attention to telehealth has continued to grow in both the public and private sectors. Peer-reviewed journals and professional societies are devoted to telehealth, the federal government provides grant funding to promote the use of telehealth, and the private technology industry continues to develop new applications for telehealth. However, barriers remain to the use of telehealth modalities, including issues related to reimbursement, licensure, workforce, and costs. Also, some areas of telehealth have developed a stronger evidence base than others. The Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) sponsored the IOM in holding a workshop in Washington, DC, on August 8-9 2012, to examine how the use of telehealth technology can fit into the U.S. health care system. HRSA asked the IOM to focus on the potential for telehealth to serve geographically isolated individuals and extend the reach of scarce resources while also emphasizing the quality and value in the delivery of health care services. This workshop summary discusses the evolution of telehealth since 1996, including the increasing role of the private sector, policies that have promoted or delayed the use of telehealth, and consumer acceptance of telehealth. The Role of Telehealth in an Evolving Health Care Environment: Workshop Summary discusses the current evidence base for telehealth, including available data and gaps in data; discuss how technological developments, including mobile telehealth, electronic intensive care units, remote monitoring, social networking, and wearable devices, in conjunction with the push for electronic health records, is changing the delivery of health care in rural and urban environments. This report also summarizes actions that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can undertake to further the use of telehealth to improve health care outcomes while controlling costs in the current health care environment.

Telemedicineâ€"the use of information and telecommunications technologies to provide and support health care when distance separates the participantsâ€"is receiving increasing attention not only in remote areas where health care access is troublesome but also in urban and suburban locations. Yet the benefits and costs of this blend of medicine and digital technologies must be better demonstrated before today's cautious decision-makers invest significant funds in its development. Telemedicine presents a framework for evaluating patient care applications of telemedicine. The book identifies managerial, technical, policy, legal, and human factors that must be taken into account in evaluating a telemedicine program. The committee reviews previous efforts to establish evaluation frameworks and reports on results from several completed studies of image transmission, consulting from remote locations, and other telemedicine programs. The committee also examines basic elements of an evaluation and considers relevant issues of quality, accessibility, and cost of health care. Telemedicine will be of immediate interest to anyone with interest in the clinical application of telemedicine.

Telemedicine and telehealth have consistently been shown to be effective for remote areas or limited-resource locations, regular medical and surgical practice, primary care, second opinion, extreme conditions, major crises, and disaster management. The aim of this book is to bring all aspects of telemedicine and e-health to the reader, in a simple, make-sense approach, in one tome. The book is structured in four parts with 29 chapters written by the best experts in the field from around the world, including clinicians, scientists, and administrators of telemedicine programs. Part I deals with basic principles of telemedicine and telepresence. Historical journeys of telemedicine and strategies, building sustainable telemedicine and telehealth programs in the United States and in the Balkans, as well as incorporation of telemedicine in the current ongoing pandemic COVID-19 are well described and are must read. Current technological developments, rules and regulations, legal and business aspects and consent are also addressed. Part II describes strategies for building sustainable telemedicine and telehealth programs. Telehealth patient portals and public-private partnership modes of technology, as well the role of international telemedicine and how to make it work, are valuable chapters of great significance. Part III describes outcomes-based evidence clinical applications of telemedicine in trauma, burns, intensive care, pediatric care, psychiatry, and stroke. Finally, one important chapter for the readers is the telemedicine for prison and jail population. The final part, Part IV depicts surgical telementoring and teleproctoring, a chapter written by 18 various surgical experts, a true gem for the readers. The book ends with promises and hurdles of telemedicine in austere conditions. Telemedicine, Telehealth and Telepresence serves as a valuable resource that focuses on providing patients care from a distance using store and forward technology to live actual performance of operations at a distance.Chapters 1, 6, 12 and 17 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Advances in telemedicine technologies have offered clinicians greater levels of real-time guidance and technical assistance for diagnoses, monitoring, operations or interventions from colleagues based in remote locations. The topic includes the use of videoconferencing, mentorship during surgical procedures, or machine-to-machine communication to process data from one location by programmes running in another.

Innovative developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) irrevocably change our lives and enable new possibilities for society. Telemedicine, which can be defined as novel ICT-enabled medical services that help to overcome classical barriers in space and time, definitely profits from this trend. Through Telemedicine patients can access medical expertise that may not be available at the patient's site. Telemedicine services can range from simply sending a fax message to a colleague to the use of broadband networks with multimodal video- and data streaming for second opinioning as well as medical telepresence. Telemedicine is more and more evolving into a multidisciplinary approach. This book project "Advances in Telemedicine" has been conceived to reflect this broad view and therefore has been split into two volumes, each covering specific themes: Volume 1: Technologies, Enabling Factors and Scenarios; Volume 2: Applications in Various Medical Disciplines and Geographical Regions. The current Volume 2 is structured into the following thematic sections: Cardiovascular Applications; Applications for Diabetes, Pregnancy and Prenatal Medicine; Further Selected Medical Applications; Regional Applications.

"This book provide a comprehensive coverage of the latest and most relevant knowledge, developments, solutions, and practical applications, related to e-Health, this new field of knowledge able to transform the way we live and deliver services, both from the technological and social perspectives"--Provided by publisher.

Innovative developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) irrevocably change our lives and enable new possibilities for society. Telemedicine, which can be defined as novel ICT-enabled medical services that help to overcome classical barriers in space and time, definitely profits from this trend. Through Telemedicine patients can access medical expertise that may not be available at the patient's site. Telemedicine services can range from simply sending a fax message to a colleague to the use of broadband networks with multimodal video- and data streaming for second opinioning as well as medical telepresence. Telemedicine is more and more evolving into a multidisciplinary approach. This book project "Advances in Telemedicine" has been conceived to reflect this broad view and therefore has been split into two volumes, each covering specific themes: Volume 1: Technologies, Enabling Factors and Scenarios; Volume 2: Applications in Various Medical Disciplines and Geographical Regions. The current Volume 1 is structured into the following thematic sections: Fundamental Technologies; Applied Technologies; Enabling Factors; Scenarios.

v. 1. Research findings -- v. 2. Concepts and methodology -- v. 3. Implementation issues -- v. 4. Programs, tools and products.

This book explains how telemedicine can offer solutions capable of improving the care and survival rates of cancer patients and can also help patients to live a normal life in spite of their condition. Different fields of application – community, hospital and home based – are examined, and detailed attention is paid to the use of tele-oncology in rural/extreme rural settings and in developing countries. The impact of new technologies and the opportunities afforded by the social web are both discussed. The concluding chapters consider eLearning in relation to cancer care and assess the scope for education to improve prevention. No medical condition can shatter people’s lives as cancer does today and the need to develop strategies to reduce the disease burden and improve quality of life is paramount. Readers will find this new volume in Springer’s TELe Health series to be a rich source of information on the important contribution that can be made by telemedicine in achieving these goals.