Talk:Telemedicine

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Copyright
I, Obi Igbokwe, the CEO of Biohealthmatics.com, am the owner of the copyrighted material used on this page and give my permission for the material to edited to the discretion of editors of the page. I can be contacted at igbokwe at biohealthmatics.com concerning the copyright.

Uhm... WTx? -Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.184.99.4 (talk) 05:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Definition of Telemedicine
I disagree with the definition of Telemedicine in the article. It is either incorrect or is too ambiguous and needs to be clarified.

Specifically I disagree that telemedicine refers "only to the provision of clinical services". This is even contradicted in the article by including a section on Teleradiology. Teleradiology does not fit the definition of "clinical services" so easily since it involves communication between health care professionals and does not include patients.

Or, maybe it does depending on how the term is "clinical services" is defined. For example, imagine a phone conversation between two doctors regarding a patient. Is this part of delivering "clinical services" or does the communication have to involve the patient directly?

I see telemedicine and telehealth as interchangeable terms and suggest that the two articles be merged. I want to get a discussion on this topic before editing the article.

JeremiahScholl (talk) 10:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * In our textbook (Maheu, et al. (2004) The Mental Health Professional and the New Technologies: A Handbook for Practice Today. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN: 978-0-8058-3988-3, pages 6–7) we discuss how the Telemedicine Information Exchange has defined telemedicine "as the use of electronic signals to transfer medical data from one location to another", but "has come to refer primarily to clinical or supportive medical practice delivered across distances via telecommunication technology, performed by licenced or otherwise legally authorized individuals. Nowadays "telemedicine persists ... for direct service delivery", whereas telehealth has become favored by government agencies and legislation. We decided to use those terms interchangeably in our book, but noted that these terms will drop out of sight as practice incorporates such communication and treatment at a distance as normal and ordinary, not worthy of special mention. As for Wikipedia, there is no point in maintaining any distinction or having separate articles. Myron (talk) 21:56, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Telemedicine is a broadly used term. Based on my review of the literature coming from law reviews, medical, and trade journals, it for the most part now encompasses "cybermedicine" and "cybersurgery" (both parts of telemedicine) and is part of a broader "E-Health" policy. This usage is by no means set. For example, Telemedicine for purposes of medicare reimbusement in the US is called "telehealth" and must utilize real-time telecommunications technologies. This is exclusive of teleradiology which is a store and forward technology. The WHO has a particularly broad definition of telemedicine. I will add some external links that will provide sufficient additional sources for those interested in this topic. [anonymous. 4/18/08]

_________

This is in fact a quite bad and irrelevant article and it leaves us wondering if the author has any real knowledge of modern telemedicine. And terms like "in absentia health care"...? Never heard of. And why is teleradiology given so much space? I really think that we should start improving this entry before thinking of merging it with telehealth. HiDO —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.102.0.178 (talk) 04:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Psychiatry was early
Psychiatry was an early adopter of telecommunication to deliver healthcare, well before technology had advanced to a point where transmission of images for radiology became routinely cost-efficient. When I get a chance I'll correct the article text and supply references. Myron 09:01, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Telehealth v Telemedicine
The wikipedia articles contradict each other re the distinction betweeen telehealth and telemedicine. I was going to try to de-conflict, but would welcome help, input, comments. Journalist1983 15:05, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Telemedicine has come to be identified with Teleconsultations, telementoring and in those areas where store and Forward or Realtime data transfer takes place. Telehealth is a more encompassing term which includes use of features of Primary healthcare provision like statistics collection. A term with even wider scope and promoted by WHO is eHealth wherein TeleEducation and Tele training are included-- (Gogia7) 00:34, 27 September 2009

Just some advice, Medicine and Healthcare, although may sound similar, maintain several pointing differences between each other. Telemedicine and TeleHealth are two entirely different fields. It is important not to get the two confused by singling them under one heading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.105.213.44 (talk) 08:10, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Telenursing
I removed the parenthesized insertion about "Tele Nursing" being "more practical". I don't know what "more practical" means or how one quantifies or compares practicality in this area; besides, among the various aspects of telemedicine, telenursing should not be singled out here. It already enjoys its own niche in Wikipedia. Myron (talk) 13:13, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

TELEMEDICINE

what is the advantages and dis-advantages of telemedicine? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.98.164.19 (talk) 10:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Smoke signal usage for medical reasons in African villages
On August 18, 2008, IP editor 68.204.45.173 removed a sentence from the 'Early precursors' section which referred to African villagers using smoke signals to warn others that their village was suffering a communicable disease. An additional sentence discussing medical flying services in Australia was allowed to remain. The sentence removed was the first one in the paragraph, and read:
 * "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 of 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 IP editor who removed the sentence commented in the edit summary: "There's no evidence in the link that Africans used smoke signals to indicate diseased villages." However more important than the link is whether there's a general reliable source that can be cited to support the removed the material, and there may be:


 * Nakajima, I.; Sastrokusumo, U.; Mishra, S.K.; Komiya, R.; Malik, A.Z.; Tanuma, T.  The Asia Pacific Telecommunity's Telemedicine Activities, IEEE Xplore.com website, 17-19 Aug. 2006, pp. 280 - 282, ISBN: 0-7803-9704-5, DOI: 10.1109/HEALTH.2006.246471

The paper's abstract, viewable online, quotes the Wikipedia paragraph word-for-word. However the paper itself and its references are unviewable without a subscription/membership account -there's some difficulty determining whether the noted paragraph was extracted from Wikipedia or from another source. It may be an unusable reference.

The above noted Wikipedia paragraph was first inserted in February 2005, as shown here. The IP who inserted that material had a record of edits on religious, Australian and medical articles as shown here, so its possible the editor had some missionary experience in Africa, which tends to confirm the material, but which still can't be used without a proper citation.

What's needed are people familiar with both medical history and African village communications, who can pull out the required reference from an African source. A casual review of JSTOR and other general online databases didn't bring up anything relevant to smoke signal usage in Africa, although a fair amount of material is available on military and native North American smoke signal communications, however none for telemedical applications. So who's an African village medical communications specialist in the audience? Best: HarryZilber (talk) 03:51, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Update: a further 1990 reference was found in a Reader's Digest article compilation book, "Did You Know?". A citation has been added for this item, as well as the one noted above.  There are several other general discussions of traditional African communications in various sources viewable online which refer to the smoke 'puff' codes used to indicate news of importance from villages or camps.  Its apparent that the statement has been reliably researched and documented in the past.  Best: HarryZilber (talk) 15:55, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Teleophthamology Edit
I added a sentence about remote diabetic retinopathy screenings helping low-income and uninsured patients. I also added references. I am new to Wikipedia. Can someone review these edits to make sure I am following Wikipedia guidelines? Thanks, — Preceding unsigned comment added by FieldsTom (talk • contribs) 18:22, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Looks good, Tom! We always need more scholarly citations. -Bryanrutherford0 (talk) 20:15, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Reorganization
I clarified the section heading hierarchy, added a section on the benefits and drawbacks of telemedicine with a number of new citations, and entirely removed the section "Standards and Guidelines," which seems to have been purely an attempt to spam the article with (broken) links to the American Telemedicine Association. Here's hoping the article flows a little better now... -Bryanrutherford0 (talk) 22:05, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I propose merging Remote surgery into this article (Telemedicine). Badon (talk) 10:07, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

That does not make sense because Telemedicine is a broad general term used for any aspect of medicine that has a remote means from dermatology, to chats with your doctor and more. Remote surgery is a very specific, highly complex niche area of remote delivery of care. A world class surgeon is not to be confused with a general term clinician (e.g. RN) and Remote surgery is not to be confused with a general telemedicine (chatting with a nurse). Another way to look at this: You cannot merge Formula One racing with a Friday night neighborhood street racing, although both are racing. I know because I have been in this field for over 15 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.47.232.254 (talk) 00:05, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Also oppose, broad subject to be summarized in telemedicine and details in remote surgery. Untagging. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:27, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Removal of Tamil Nadu addition
I've removed the recently added material about psychological services in Tamil Nadu after the tsunami. First, the services described seem like an example of telepsychiatry, not of teleneuropsychology (the heading under which they were added). Second, the details are much too specific for this survey article on all of telemedicine; this might belong in one of the more specific articles that are linked in the section headings of this one. Third, the reference cites an article written by the editor who added the link, which is questionable. Fourth, the book link in the citation doesn't work; link rot is unavoidable, but a link should at least work on the day it's added... Fifth, there is no call to insert a link to a business directly into the article, which I've also removed.

I've tidied up the syntax on the citation and moved it here (below), so that it can be added to a more specialized article (probably the article on Telepsychiatry) if another editor thinks it should be retained, but it doesn't belong in this article.

The SATHI program showcased successful use of Telemental Health Support to 2004 Tsunami victims in Tamil Nadu, India. The same is being successfully continued by the local partners.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bryanrutherford0 (talk • contribs) 12:11, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Merge discussion
If you want to weigh in on whether this should be merged with telehealth, please comment Talk:Telehealth. II | (t - c) 01:48, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Patient participation in website medical interventions


 Blue Rasberry  (talk)  14:23, 29 March 2017 (UTC)