Telemedicine--the practice of providing remote medical diagnosis and treatment, as well as interpretation of medical images through the use of electronic transmission (via video, telephone, and computers)--has been a technology of great promise, but limited practical impact for decades. This disjointed overview paper provides some useful anecdotes, but little perspective on the topic.

The authors move from topic to topic randomly, and include discussion of subjects totally unrelated (for instance, the role of alternative health providers) or only minimally related (doctors ordering supplies online, computer-based medical education) to the main theme. While they state that “the emergence of telemedicine has altered the structure of this industry,” they provide little data to support this assertion. Indeed, a crucial question is why the promise of telemedicine has not been realized, a subject that a better paper would have explored in greater depth. A crucial omission in a paper focusing on applications in the United States is the omission of any mention of the Health Insurance Privacy and Portability Act (HIPPA), which has heavily impacted medical communication.

The subject deserves a better overview than the one provided in this paper.