The effects of telemedicine on access, cost and quality of health care

Telemedicine can improve access to health care and reduce some costs in both rural and urban areas. In Australia it has also been shown that telemedicine can reduce the “time-to-treatment” in some cases. The time spent by consultants in travelling to the satellite clinics of a medical center consortium can be greatly reduced following networking the consortium. The rate of growth of telemedicine appears to depend on several factors: (1) the degree of consolidation of the multiple LANs of a participating medical center; (2) the level of computer proficiency of the clinicians involved; (3) the extent of computer entry of patient data at both the remote and medical center sites; and (4) the extent of “economy of scale” achievable in sharing leased lines with public and private networks. Video-conferencing is very cost-effective in providing health care for prison and mental institution inmates since patients can be seen without transporting them to an outside clinic. The most important factor limiting the development of telemedicine today is the lack of insurance reimbursement for participating clinicians