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Clinical care, consultation and education delivered via communication technology or the world of telemedicine opens up unlimited opportunities in medicine. The possibilities range from the commonplace, such as consultation by e-mail or the far-fetched telesurgery on a patient in another country or even in space. The middle-ground possibilities consist of radiology consults on home computers, lectures broadcast in real time by satellite, home health care by videophone, centralized intensive care monitoring, travel-free prison health and late-shift international sourcing.

Real-life happenings such as an infectious disease specialist providing HIV care by videoconference to a prison population and an urologist who does hospital rounds by remote-controlled robot and perform robotic telesurgeries, are very much encouraging. Physicians can develop their own programs once guided by a reliable technical resource.

What started as two physicians consulting about a patient by e-mail has now reached the point where telesurgery is possible. The use of communication technology to provide medical care and education at a distance or telemedicine has exploded in the last ten years especially in medically underserved rural areas. At present, there are more than 200 telemedicine programs in the U.S., including centers in academic medical institutions.

Telemedicine’s economic role as consumers and insurers demand more cost-efficient medical care is expected to be big. There are plans to use telecommunication equipment to home-monitor the conditions of thousands of chronically-ill patients due to a study that showed that such a program could decrease hospital length of stay, emergency room trips and home-care nurse visits. The full potential of telemedicine is yet to unfold.