Tele-medicine covers several different spheres, including medicine, telecommunications, information technology, device manufacturing and education. Thanks to its diagnostics treatment and medical supervision of patients is more straightforward, cheaper and at the same time qualified. The objective of telemedicine is guaranteeing a high quality and level of medical assistance to patients regardless of their location.
More and more companies manufacturing state-of-the-art equipment are now producing devices for use in telemedicine and the number of medical devices that can be used through home and wireless networks is constantly on the rise. The rapid development of this sphere of medicine is at the point where today standardization of systems for the transfer of medical data is being developed, the compatibility of medical devices is being improved and a new model of medical care has forced the insurance industry to seek other schemes for compensation of the expenses of patients and providers of medical services.
The best description of this sphere was given by the American Telemedicine Association: “Tele-medicine entails the transfer of medical information between two remote points between patients, doctors, other providers of medical aid and separate medical institutions. Telemedicine is communication between medical experts and clinics, hospitals, doctors rendering first aid and healthcare for patients in remote areas. This sphere of medicine aims at providing diagnostics, treatment, consultation and continuing medical education.” (Telemedicine Resources and Services: American Telemedicine Association//University of Texas at Austin. – 1994)
The two main areas of telemedicine are remote diagnostics and consultation and remote monitoring of the state of the terminally ill.
rendering assistance to doctors working in remote stationary or provisional medical points for the diagnostics and treatment of the ill;
rendering medical consultation to patients in remote areas without direct contact;
facilitating the dissemination of administrative and methodological documents throughout the regional medicare infrastructure;
transfer of knowledge and experience of specialists of leading medical treatment and education centers to practicing doctors;
holding qualified distance exams and certification;
conducting telemedicine sessions that allows for use of medical services in cities where the given service is inaccessible due to its remoteness from larger cities.
