Telemedicine overview and summary

Telemedicine is a generic term which is used to define various aspects of health care at a distance. In its broadest application, telemedicine can be defined as the use of telecommunication technologies to provide medical information and services. The key aspect of telemedicine is the use of electronic signals to transfer information from one site to another. Telemedicine is becoming most recognized as referring to remote clinical care and consultation through the use of electronic imaging equipment. By using Telemedicine technologies and a well-planned timeline, the AMEDD (Army Medical Department) has successfully drawn down it's hospital complement from 165 hospitals to just 62 hospitals in the force structure-a 62% decrease. Telemedicine services that integrate electronic medical records can decrease the number of cases where doctors cannot access patient's records. According to the Institute of Medicine, about 30% of physicians could not have accessed their patient's files in existing non-telemedicine systems and 70% of the records were incomplete.