Clinical Applications

There are several categories of clinical telehealth applications:

Teleconsultation is the classical model of what people might ordinarily classify as telemedicine. This application of telehealth involves a physician or subspecialist consultant at a center of medical expertise providing a diagnosis and treatment plan based on conducting a remote interactive patient examination and interview or reviewing data from a store-and-forward encounter. Occasionally, the encounter may be physician-to-physician consultation or rendering second opinion services.

Telecare is the use of telehealth to directly communicate with a patient and/or care giver in situ (e.g. home care, wound care, disease management), electronically monitor physiologic data, follow up on problems related to a known diagnosis, ascertain compliance with treatment plans, and/or patient education.

Multidisciplinary/multispecialty clinical collaboration – includes subspecialists at multiple locations collaborating on single case or groups of cases. A good example of this application would be a tele- or virtual tumor board that involves oncology, radiation oncology, hematology, pathology, immunology, among other specialties. Another example would be physician-to-specialist collaboration.

Telehealth services have been provided in a myriad of medical specialties and health service applications:

Radiology
Dermatology
Psychiatry/Mental Health
Pediatrics
Cardiology (pediatric & adult)
OB/GYN
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Neurology
Pathology
Endocrinology
Rheumatology
Infectious Disease
Emergency Medicine/Trauma
Urology
Orthopedics
Oncology