T. Di Rosa, M. Sturari, A. F. Dragoni1, G. Giampieri2
1DEIT, Dipartimento di Elettronica Intelligenza Artificiale e Telecomunicazioni – Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona
2ASUR Zona 7, Azienda Sanitaria Locale delle Marche Ancon
Telehealth is the use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve patients' health status. Videoconferencing, transmission of still images, e-health including patient portals, remote monitoring of vital signs, continuing medical education and nursing call centers are all considered part of telemedicine and telehealth. TCP/IP-Telehealth removes distances and waiting times, thus reducing costs, while ensuring high quality digital information even for complex health services. Telemedicine has been experimented in many countries, also in those with less advanced sanitary systems, and it is affirmed on a large scale, as ordinary component of the health services. In the past, the costs for equipment and telecommunications have been too high to allow it, and, until today, the lack of specialized personnel of support to retrieve such equipment has been another major obstacle. |
