Telemedicine: the current state of the art

Telemedicine is a major new development and has great potential for improving health care delivery. There is a great deal of telemedicine activity around the world but as yet little scientific proof of its cost-effectiveness. Irrespective of this, certain telemedicine applications-for example teleradiology-have become major commercial successes, especially in the USA. Other applications, such as telepathology, remain the subject of research effort. Teleconsulting applications lie between these two extremes. Having become technically and economically feasible, telemedicine now deserves proper investigation.