A simple definition of telemedicine is “the use of electronic information and communication technologies to provide and support healthcare when distance separates participants”.
For more then 3 decades clinicians, health service researchers and others have been investigating the use of advanced telecommunication and information technologies (IT) for improving healthcare.
Telemedicine has variety of application in patient care, health education research, administration and public health. Commonest of all is use of emergency number call by ordinary telephones. Other applications like telesurgery, home monitoring of patients are yet to get attention and routine application in day- to-day practice.
Early application of telemedicine was often focussed on remote populations scattered across mountainous areas, islands, open planes and arctic regions where doctors were not easily reached, but recently as the cost of communication and IT has dropped there is an wave of interest propelled upon in the field of telemedicine.
In the era of superspecialisation the telemedicine can offer a mechanism for centralising specialist and supporting primary care physician at remote places.
In these contexts telemedicine has the potential to radically reshape healthcare in both positive and negative ways and to fundamentally alter the personal face to face interaction that has been the model for medical care for generations.
Rapid advancement in IT, complexity of technical infrastructure, non-affordability, non-availability, non-users friendly, and reluctancy by institution and individual are few challenges one will face while evaluating use of telemedicine. Other than this a remodelling and restructuring national healthcare delivery system will be a measure requirement.
The time has come, government and private healthcare providers should start recognising the need of more systematic evaluation of telemedicine. The issue has been sensitised already by the National President of IMA in his presidential speech delivered at Patna at the IMACON, 2006.
Proper use of telemedicine will emphasise doctor to doctor communication and fill up the gap of non-availability of superspecialist in remote unaccessible areas. It will improve up some advance emergency help to patients and will provide more room for evidence-based medical practice. However, some medicolegal and ethical issues will prop up and will require a plausible solutions.
Lack of computer savvy medical personnel, non-availability of advance equipment and uniform guidelines are some grey areas.
Members of Indian Medical Association will have to take up this challenge unitedly, to start using this advance technology for the benefit of the human race.
Over the last decades, changes in the healthcare policy, demographics, and technology have presented new opportunities for delivering medical care in rural areas.
Telemedicine is an innovation, currently used to strengthen the likelihood of continued healthcare in the rural communities.

 

*Hony Editor, JIMA, Kolkata 700014