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Different Types of Telemedicine

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Telemedicine and teleradiology expert Peter (Pete) Killcommons has served as CEO of Medweb for more than 25 years, overseeing the company as well as its organized philanthropy program. Among other duties, Peter Killcommons supervises the company’s telemedicine division.

Telemedicine encompasses all clinical services provided through the use of telecommunications technology. Here are examples of telemedicine in action.

1. Store-and-forward solutions, also known as asynchronous telemedicine, allow medical professionals to share and forward patients’ medical data, such as records, lab results, and others, to a provider in another location via a secure, sophisticated platform. Store-and-forward telemedicine is efficient in that the patient, medical professional, and provider need not be in the same location or even access the information at the same time.
2. Medical professionals use remote patient monitoring, also known as telemonitoring, to track vital signs and other important health data from a distance. Remote patient monitoring is an easy-to-use means of communication between the patient and his or her doctor. However, the success of this type of telemedicine depends on the health tracking tools available at the patient’s home.
3. Real-time telehealth, or synchronous telemedicine, is a live interaction between a doctor and the patient, or between health professionals, via video and audio communication. Although this type of platform is quite sophisticated, its principle is simple: allow the doctor and patient to talk to each other from afar.