Telemedicine in the USA with focus on clinical applications and issues

Telemedicine usually refers to the use of information-based technologies, such as, computer and communications systems, to provide healthcare across geographic distances. Although telemedicine has the potential to improve healthcare, the number of clinical applications is still small and constrained by custom, regulatory, reimbursement and technical issues. In this review paper, a short historical review of telemedicine is provided, followed by an overview of clinical telemedicine applications, including cardiology, dermatology, emergency medicine and trauma care, homecare, pathology, psychiatry, radiology and surgery. Current telemedicine issues in clinics and technological problems to be decided, improved, and challenged, are reviewed. This is followed by conclusions.