Very simply, telehealth is the delivery of health care from a distance. Modern technology has made it possible for patients to receive health care in many different ways. Technologies such as telephones, email, computers, interactive video, digital imaging, and health care monitoring devices, make it possible for clinicians to monitor, diagnose and treat patients without having to physically be with them. Telehealth is a broad term that covers any type of health care that is delivered remotely. Surfing the Internet for information about cancer, telephoning a nurse hotline, emailing a physician, sending data from a heart monitor via the telephone to a cardiologist--all of these things are applications of telehealth.
Telemedicine is a subset of telehealth. It includes many medical subspecialties, such as telepediatrics, telepsychiatry, teleradiology and telecardiology. Specialities such as telepediatrics and telepsychiatry are practiced by using live videoconferencing systems. A pediatric or psychiatry visit would be conducted exactly the same as if the patient and provider were in the same room, but the videoconferencing units allow them to be thousands of miles apart. Specialties such as teleradiology and telecardiology make use of "store and forward" technologies. Digital photos, x-rays, electrocardiograms, and other data are transmitted from one location to another and stored on a computer. A radiologist or cardiologist then retrieves the data from the computer and analyzes it in the same way that they would if the patient were sitting in the next room.
Telehealth and telemedicine have been used to provide quality health care to tens of thousands of patients worldwide over the last decade. It is currently being used in rural areas, school districts, home health settings, nursing homes, Native American communities and on NASA space missions, cruise ships, the prison and the military. There is a good chance that telehealth is being practiced somewhere near you. Results from a comprehensive survey by the Telemedicine Research Center show an industry active in nearly every state with many of the programs operating within university medical centers, health care/hospital networks, home care agencies and long-term care facilities.
