Past, present and future: experiences and lessons from telehealth projects

Elder, Laurent; Clarke, Michael

We believe that telehealth and e-health solutions can have real, short-term benefits at many levels, including a direct benefit to patients. Reductions in medical error, the realization of costs savings, real-time monitoring of public health incidents and the provision of validated data and information for health systems decision-and policy-making are just some of these benefits. However, there is an ongoing need to support research that demonstrates these benefits within the framework of a cost-benefit analysis in order to justify the often significant up-front costs associated with the implementation of comprehensive, system-wide telemedicine solutions. This, of course, is particularly significant in the context of developing countries with limited financial resources and telecommunications infrastructure. Although these constraints are limiting in many ways, there are significant opportunities to develop innovative approaches to telemedicine that often do not have to contend with legacy systems and bloated bureaucracies in these environments.