Section Overview

By minimizing or even eliminating the effect of distance, telemedicine comes to establish new standards for the delivery of health services worldwide. One of the major application areas is the provision of skilled medical care to patients who are in some way isolated from the specialized care they need. This is specially the case for patients living in isolated areas (rural regions, islands) who often have substandard access to specialty health care. Access to these services is only achieved with the use of applications that allow remote expert consultation providing a faster response in emergency and crisis situations. In the last decade, several telemedicine concepts and scenarios have been investigated and developed to fulfill this healthcare need for the benefit of isolated populations.