Telehealth systems: considering knowledge management and ICT issues

We examine the factors necessary for telehealth implementations in healthcare organisations. We focus on the transfer of medical information using information and communication technologies (ICT). The paper identifies current applications of telehealth and telemedicine. It contends that we are using such applications in a static manner, whilst futuristic systems would be dynamic in nature and would support the transfer of context-based information. This could make web-based multimedia patient administration systems the norm for healthcare institutions. Such a scenario is likely to lead to a situation where healthcare institutions would be flooded with large amounts of clinical data. The introduction of the knowledge management (KM) paradigm would enable healthcare institutions to face the challenge of transforming large amounts of medical data into relevant clinical information. A KM solution would allow healthcare institutions to give clinical data context, so as to allow knowledge derivation for more effective clinical diagnoses. It would also provide a mechanism for the effective transfer of the acquired knowledge so as to aid telecare workers, as and when required.