EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF TELEMEDICINE

Telemedicine, telehealth, and e-health have the capacity to increase access to quality, timely, and cost-effective specialty health care. Telemedicine results from the contribution of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) towards heath care, and the improving health and welfare of society. This is achieved by providing ubiquitous health care services to remote regions. Telemedicine has many advantages. The biggest considerable advantage of telemedicine is the savings of time (travel to appointments, requirements for both patient and professional to be available, administrative tasks, etc.), cost (organizational work load, administrative resources, reduced travel, utilization of consultation services at a distance, etc.), and effort for a patient. Telemedicine can be extremely beneficial for people living in isolated communities and remote regions and is currently being applied in virtually all medical domains.