Telemedicine is the use of communication technologies to deliver health-related services over a distance. Many health care practitioners prefer the term telehealth as a more comprehensive means to express the clinical, health education, and data management applications of these technologies. Telemedicine is not a new concept and can be traced back to the 1950s, when a psychiatrist provided mental health services to inmates by connecting to a prison 150 miles away using closed-circuit television. A handful of telemedicine projects through the 1960s and 1970s gained attention but not traction, as they fizzled out in the 1980s. However, a series of significant health care challenges led to the reemergence of telemedicine in the final decade of the 20th century.

The resurgence and continued growth of telemedicine in ...