Page 11 - Part 1 Introduction to Telemedicine

SVMIC Introduction to Telemedicine

 Some considerations regarding payment for telemedicine

services

Like other major social transformations, the effects of telemedicine
are reverberating across the healthcare ecology in many ways that

can now be foreseen now, and in ways that cannot. Many
strategic, economic, workforce and logistic calculations that have

long governed planning (especially by governments and large

entities) in the healthcare industry will need to be recalibrated as
the constraint of geography is replaced by the constraint of

connectivity.

What is Telemedicine?

Within the larger universe of “electronic applications that operate
between separate sites in healthcare”, the ones deemed

telemedicine are defined for different purposes by different
authorities. However, from every standpoint, the two critical

elements are: 1) it comprises the practice of medicine, and 2)
services are delivered to patients in a different location from the

provider. Definitions fall into the categories of technological,

regulatory and financial.

Technological Definitions

From a technological and functional standpoint, the American

Telemedicine Association (ATA) defines Telemedicine as, “[T]he
use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via

electronic communications to improve patients' health status.”
2

2 http://thesource.americantelemed.org/resources/telemedicine-glossary [7/16/18]

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