Telemedicine

Abstract

Clinical telemedicine and informative telemedicine were defined by the WHO in 1998 as follows [1]: “Clinical telemedicine is a professional activity that implements digital telecommunication facilities for physicians and other members of the medical profession to remotely perform medical procedures for patients.” On the contrary, informative telemedicine is “an interactive audiovisual communication service that organizes the dissemination of medical knowledge and protocols for patient care and care in order to support and improve medical activity.” In other words, clinical telemedicine refers to the practice of distance medicine through technological means, while informative telemedicine concerns the dissemination of knowledge and information for medical use through these same means. With more than 40 definitions of e-health in 2004, WHO took the initiative to propose in 2005 a consensual definition of e-health or cyber health [2] as “the use of IT in support health and related areas, including health-care services, health surveillance, health literature and health education, knowledge and research,” with information technology (IT) itself as “the combination of products and services that capture, store and display data and information electronically.”