Telecardiology and the intensive care unit.

Technology continues to advance at a pace that produces a new innovation daily. To move forward, clinicians must assess these potential technological solutions adequately for their clinical, financial, and customer satisfaction efficacies. Whether the payers, the patients, or health care will find these systems acceptable has yet to be established completely. The preliminary data in the literature seem to point to physicians' trepidations as the limiting factor. More work is needed on the legal and ethical issues surrounding telemedicine. Telemedicine is progressing quickly from a strange rare subtype of medicine into something that is part and parcel of the practice of medicine in general. Cardiology and intensivist practices have been impacted directly by this technology. As it matures it will be intertwined with daily practice.