Telemedicine is the use of telecommunication and information technology in order to provide clinical healthcare at a distance. It helps eliminate distance barriers and can improve access to medical services that would often not be consistently available in distant rural communities. It is also used to save lives in critical care and emergency situations. Although there were distant precursors to telemedicine, it is essentially a product of 20th century telecommunication and information technology.
This technology permits communication between patient and medical staff with both convenience and fidelity, as well as the transmission of medicine, imaging and health informatic data from one site to another. Early forms of telemedicine achieved with telephone and radio have been supplemented with videotelephony, advanced diagnostic methods supported by distributed client/server application and additionally with telemedical devices to support in home care.