Videoconferencing is a very useful technology for telemedicine and telenursing applications, such as diagnosis, consulting, transmission of medical images, etc., in real time in countries where this is legal. Using VTC, patients may contact nurses and physicians in emergency or routine situations, physicians and other paramedical professionals can discuss cases across large distances. Rural areas can use this technology for diagnostic purposes, thus saving lives and making more efficient use of health care money.
Special peripherals such as microscopes fitted with digital cameras, videoendoscopes, medical ultrasound imaging devices, otoscopes, etc., can be used in conjunction with VTC equipment to transmit data about a patient.
Telemedicine is a rapidly developing application of clinical medicine where medical information is transferred through the phone or the Internet and sometimes other networks for the purpose of consulting, and sometimes remote medical procedures or examinations.
Telemedicine may be as simple as two health professionals discussing a case over the telephone, or as complex as using satellite technology and video-conferencing equipment to conduct a real-time consultation between medical specialists in two different countries. Telemedicine generally refers to the use of communications and information technologies for the delivery of clinical care.
(See photo from HELP telemedicine clinic)
Care at a distance (also called in absentia care), is an old practice which was often conducted via post; there has been a long and successful history of in absentia health care, which – thanks to modern communication technology – has evolved into what we know as modern telemedicine.
In its early manifestations, African villagers used smoke signals to warn people to stay away from the village in case of serious disease. In the early 1900s, people living in remote areas in Australia used two-way radios, powered by a dynamo driven by a set of bicycle pedals, to communicate with the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia.
The terms e-health and telehealth are at times wrongly interchanged with telemedicine. Like the terms “medicine” and “health care”, telemedicine often refers only to the provision of clinical services while the term telehealth can refer to clinical and non-clinical services such as medical education, administration, and research. The term e-health is often, particularly in the UK and Europe, used as an umbrella term that includes telehealth, electronic medical records, and other components of health IT.
Telenursing refers to the use of telecommunications and information technology for providing nursing services in health care whenever a large physical distance exists between patient and nurse, or between any number of nurses. As a field it is part of telehealth, and has many points of contacts with other medical and non-medical applications, such as telediagnosis, teleconsultation, telemonitoring, etc.
Telenursing is achieving a large rate of growth in many countries, due to several factors: the preoccupation in driving down the costs of health care, an increase in the number of aging and chronically ill population, and the increase in coverage of health care to distant, rural, small or sparsely populated regions. Among its many benefits, telenursing may help solve increasing shortages of nurses; to reduce distances and save travel time, and to keep patients out of hospital. A greater degree of job satisfaction has been registered among telenurses.
Remote Diagnostics refers to ability to diagnose a given symptom, issue or problem from a distance. Instead of the subject being colocated with the person or system doing the diagnostics, with remote diagnostics, the subjects can be separated by physical distant (E.g., earth-moon). Information exchange occurs either by wire or wireless.
When limiting to systems, a general accepted definition is: ‘To Improve reliability of vital or capital-intensive installations and reduce the maintenance costs by avoiding unplanned maintenance, by monitoring the condition of the system remotely. ‘
Process elements for remote diagnostics:
• Remotely monitor selected vital system parameters
• Analysis of data to detect trends
• Comparison with known or expected behavior data
• After detected performance degradation, predict the failure moment by extrapolation
• Order parts and/or plan maintenance, to be executed when really necessary, but in time to prevent a failure or stop
Typical uses:
• medical use (see Remote guidance)
• Formula 1 racecars
• space (Apollo project and others)
• Telephone systems like a PABX
• aeroplanes, like 747, Fokker, Airbus and many others.
The reasons for RD can be one of more of these aspects:
• limit local personnel to a minimum (Gemini, Apollo capsules: too tight to fit all technicians)
• limit workload of local personnel
• limit risks (exposure to dangerous environments)
• central expertise (locally solve small problems, remotely/centralized solve complex problems by experts)
• efficiency: reduce travel time to get expert & system or subject together

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