Definitions & Key Components

Telemedicine applications can be classified into two basic types, according to the timing of the information transmitted and the interaction between the individuals involved—be it health professional-to-health professional or health professional-to-patient. Store-and-forward, or asynchronous, telemedicine involves the exchange of pre-recorded data between two or more individuals at different times. For example, the patient or referring health professional sends an e-mail description of a medical case to an expert, who later sends back an opinion regarding diagnosis and optimal management.

In contrast, real time, or synchronous, telemedicine requires the involved individuals to be simultaneously present for immediate exchange of information, as in the case of videoconferencing. In both synchronous and asynchronous telemedicine, relevant information may be transmitted in a variety of media, such as text, audio, video, or still images. These two basic approaches to telemedicine are applied to a wide array of services in diverse settings, including teledermatology, telepathology, and teleradiology. The majority of telemedicine services, most of which focus on diagnosis and clinical management, are routinely offered in industrialized regions including, but not limited to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Scandinavia, North America, and Australia.

In addition, biometric measuring devices such as equipment monitoring heart rate, blood pressure and blood glucose levels are increasingly used to remotely monitor and manage patients with acute and chronic illnesses. Some predict that telemedicine will profoundly transform the delivery of health services in the industrialized world by migrating health care delivery away from hospitals and clinics into homes(WHO, n.d.).