Teleconferencing in Support of Medicine

Overview

Teleconferencing means interactive communication via electronic media between groups of people, in any of a variety of modes. Teleconference meetings are alternatives to face-to-face meetings. They are meetings in which speech, visual images, and messages are exchanged electronically by participants who may be relatively nearby or extremely far apart. They offer a promise of meeting-at-a-distance, a promise of more effective communication to replace, enhance, or extend what is done today. And, teleconferencing means that people who are separated by time and travel expense can get together sooner and less expensively. Since teleconferencing is as easy to arrange as face-to-face meetings, more people can contribute to or at least witness, important decisions as they are made. In short, they can try out new forms of organization which are not constrained by time and space [1].

This is believed to be the case with teleconferencing systems which allow people to communicate without traveling. To begin with, avoiding traveling great distances will save energy, but in the long run it may well be that avoiding much more frequent short distance travel will overall be the main energy saver.

It is particularly important that general practitioners, hospital doctors, nurses, and computer scientists participate in the development of teleconferencing systems for tomorrow’s health services.

Intelligent application of computers and teleconferencing devices in health care is man’s best hope for reasoned control of his own well being and, therefore, his future. In order to prepare for this future and to cope with the increasing problems regarding all levels of our society, scientific developments should be considered in support of dissimination of medical information to doctors and nurses [2].