Until recently, telehealth was a subject few people knew about — and even fewer understood. But these days, the concept is quickly gaining traction in healthcare, according to several experts who spoke recently at the National eHealth Collaborative’s Technology Crossroads Conference in Washington. They noted that telehealth’s dramatic growth will continue to climb in the years to come. Simply stated, telehealth is the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical health care, patient and professional health-related education, public health and health administration. Videoconferencing, the Internet, store-and-forward imaging, streaming media, and terrestrial and wireless communications are all contributing to its growth, they noted.
