Assessing the impact of telemedicine on health care management.

Telemedicine is undoubtedly one of the most dynamic developing fields of IT-technologies in health care. From research and development to routine clinical use of telemedicine applications, decision-makers demand information on the impact that widespread use will have on structures and processes in health care. To date published evaluations have mostly focused on technical core functions. Future evaluation concepts have to consider side-effects the use of telematic systems in health care might have. The report of effects should consider the 4 major interest groups: patients, providers, third-party payers, and society. Learning from experiences in other IT-fields, system developers can avoid pitfalls that might lead to a poor acceptance of their systems or the discontinuation of their R&D project at an immature stage.