It into two fundamental types, regarding the timing

It is a term refers to a branch of medicine that was established in the 1970s, which is in simple imply : “healing at a distance”, in another point of view, it could be the use of ICT to enhance patient outcomes by facilitating the process of reaching to care and medical information. There is no specific definition of telemedicine. In 2007, there was a study that found 104 different definitions of this term! (1)   Definition: The World Health Organization has created the following definition: “The delivery of health care services, where distance is a critical factor, by all health care professionals using information and communication technologies for the exchange of valid information for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and injuries, research and evaluation, and for the continuing education of health care providers, all in the interests of advancing the health of individuals and their communities”. (1)     TELEMEDICINE AND TELEHEALTH.Telemedicine and telehealth differences.Some separate telemedicine from telehealth with the first confined to services conductedby just physicians, and the second meansservices delivered by health care providers who are professionals in general, including nurses, pharmacists, psychologist, physiotherapist and others.

(1)   Telemedicine and telehealth similarities.However, both are synonymous having the same meaning as another and are used interchangeably. (1)Four components are relevant to telemedicineand telehealth:1. Its target is to give clinical support. (1)2. It is prepared to cope geographical barriers, binding the users who are not in the same area or place. (1)3. It includes the use of different categories of ICT.

(1)4. Its propose is to make progress in the health outcomes. (1)  Telemedicine applications.

Types.Telemedicine can be categorized into two fundamental types, regarding the timing of the information exchanged and the interaction between the humans who are related, like: in case of medical specialist-to- another medicalspecialist or medical specialist-to-patient. (1) So, again they are classified simply to: synchronous “timing-dependent” and asynchronous “timing-independent”. (1)  Examples of types.Asynchronous means the exchange of data and information that have been recorded before,between two or more people at variousintervals. (1) Example is when the health seeking individual or the health care providersends an e-mail with explanation of a specificcase to a professional who then sends it backward with a suggestion about different possibilities and ideal treatment and prevention.

(1) In the opposite term, time-dependent, or synchronous, there will beinvolvement of individuals who have to be continuously exist for rapid share of information, like in the case of videoconferencing. (1) In both timing-dependent and timing-independenttelemedicine, appropriate information may be exchanged in different environments, such as text, audio, video, or even images. (1) These two fundamental mechanisms of telemedicine are used to assist in a various of services in different settings, including teledermatology, telepathology, teleradiology, telepharmacy. (1)   Effectiveness of telemedicine.Telemedicine benefits.

This branch of medicine would be helpful to people who are living in villages and distant areas, in which they can obtain the health and medical care from healthcare providers and professionals living away without being travelled to meet them and get the diagnosis.(2) In last few years there was an improvement in the using of mobile cooperation technology that was useful in which this relationship can permit the specialist in many places to exchange information and look for patient’s case like if they have been in the engaged in the same location.(3) Monitoring the individual who lives far away by this technology is having a great role in decreasing the need for frequent visits and helping in control the away-prescription-verification and drug administration monitoring, eventually will decrease the price of medical care.

(4) This medical branch can also ease education, either preventive education for the patients or for medical students through allowing students to follow professionals in their work and get many practices more readily.(5)It can also reduce the the process of transmission of bacterial or viral disease which can be easily transmitted in hospitals between the patients and staff and also between the staff themselves. Especially in case of MRSA. In addition, few people who do not like to come and set in doctor’s office may prefer to be treated remotely. There are some patients who might have difficulties if they need to go to the hospital because they can not move or poor so they do not have a car and need an ambulance to take them to the hospitals. (6)    Telemedicine obstacles.

The disadvantages of this branch of medicine may involve the price of telecommunication and management of the huge amount of data and the training of workers. Regarding the treatment aspect in this medicine, there will be reduced interaction between the patient and physicians, which will lead to high risk of mistakes during the process of delivering the treatment in the absence of the specialist. Also there will be a higher risk regarding the confidentiality and the patient’s information from being hacked since they are stored and delivered electronically.(6) Moreover, an issue arise in which the healthcare providers of teledermatology noticed that the time needed to examine, asses and treat the patient in traditional medicine is about 15 minutes, whereas it takes 30 minutes in case of using teledermatolgy!(7) In addition, the exchanged records’ quality will be less, like: the transmitted images.(8) Another important issue is the implementation of this branch of medicine, because there are no well-understood laws and regulation.(9)        Summary and ConclusionTelemedicine is simply the use of ICT to enhance patient outcomes, it has been established decades ago.

Both telemedicine and telehealth have the same meaning, they are a synonymous. They share same goals in which they try to help the patients as much as possible, especially in medical costs. Telemedicine has two types, time-dependent and time-independent, despite the difference in time, both are using ICT to help the patients and students.

This medical branch has so many advantages in which it can reduce the cost of treatment and prevent the hospital acquired infection from being spread, it also has some drawbacks such as the security and time saving.