Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association
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Developing countries are exploring the role of telehealth to overcome the challenges of providing adequate health care services. However, this process faces disparities, and no complementarity in telehealth policy development. Telehealth has the potential to transcend geopolitical boundaries, yet telehealth policy developed in one jurisdiction may hamper applications in another. ⋯ The second category was "Proactive" (China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand) where national policies were designed with the view that telehealth initiatives are a component of larger development objectives. The third was "Reactive" (Hong Kong and Japan), where policies were only proffered after telehealth activities were sustainable. It is concluded that although complementarity of telehealth policy development is not occurring, increased interjurisdictional telehealth activity, regional clusters, and concerted and coordinated effort amongst researchers, practitioners, and policy makers may alter this trend.
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The purpose of this study was to determine telehealth professionals' current experience with technology, expectations of future technical improvements, and how the technology might impact the delivery of care, including communication with patients and patient safety. We developed a semi-structured interview protocol with eight open-ended questions. A sample of telehealth professionals of the Missouri Telehealth Network (MTN) was selected to represent all major clinical specialties. ⋯ Thirty-two percent of the respondents did not know whether practicing telemedicine over the telehealth network would increase the risk of security and privacy violations. The study findings suggest that telehealth professionals need to be educated about the security features of a telehealth network. In addition, continuous quality improvement, including internal and external benchmarking, is applicable to telemedicine settings and can both improve the quality of teleconsultations and minimize errors.