Current status of domestic telemedicine.

This manuscript addresses several aspects of the current status of telemedicine in the United States. Telemedicine programs have been in existence since the 1960s, but only in the last 2 or 3 years have they begun to proliferate. Teleradiology has grown rapidly, both in the number of systems and the volume of images transmitted. Clinical telemedicine consultation, using video-conferencing, has seen an increase in the number of programs, but patient volumes remain low. In this paper, I discuss the scope and effectiveness of telemedicine, the kinds of applications in use at various telemedicine centers, and issues of importance in the development and integration of telemedicine systems into the health care delivery infrastructure.