Telemedicine Systems and Telecommunications

The practice of telemedicine can be divided into two distinct categories: realtime and store-and-forward. Realtime telemedicine involves synchronous interaction between the parties concerned. For example, a health-care professional and a patient may interact by videoconferencing. While realtime telemedicine is often effective in terms of consultation and patient satisfaction,[1][2] it presents challenges. Foremost is the scheduling of the parties concerned, because there are usually two health-care providers involved in the consultation (the local provider and the remote physician), and they both need to be available at the same time