Telemedicine is the use of telecommunication and information technology to provide clinical health care from a distance. Typically, the patient and the physician are not located at the same place during the gathering of information from the patient or during the performance of a treatment on the patient. Telemedicine is considered of particular advantage in situations where a sick or injured individual is in a practically inaccessible location. It helps eliminate distance barriers and can improve access to medical services that would often not be consistently available in distant rural communities. It is also used to save lives in critical care and emergency situations.
Electronic consultations are possible through interactive telemedicine services which provide real-time interactions between patient and provider. Many activities such as history review, physical examination, psychiatric evaluations and ophthalmology assessments can be conducted comparably to those done in traditional face-to-face visits. In addition, “clinician-interactive” telemedicine services may be less costly than in-person clinical visit. The need exists however for less costly and more effective telemedicine systems.