Historically, telemedicine can be traced back to the mid to late to earliest days of the telephone when electrocardiograph data were transmitted over telephone wires. Telemedicine, in its modern form, started in the 1960s in large part driven by the military and space technology sectors, as well as a few individuals using readily available commercial equipment. Examples of early technological milestones in telemedicine include the use of television to facilitate consultations between specialists at a psychiatric institute and general practitioners at a state mental hospital, and the provision of expert medical advice from a major teaching hospital to an airport medic.
Recent advancements in and increasing availability and utilization of, Telehealth by the general population have been the biggest drivers of telemedicine over the past decade, rapidly creating new possibilities for health care service and delivery. This has been true for developing countries and underserved areas of industrialized nations. The replacement of analog forms of communication with digital methods, combined with a rapid drop in the cost of Telehealth, has sparked wide interest in the application of telemedicine among healthcare providers, and have enabled health care organizations to envision and implement new and more efficient ways of providing care.
The introduction and popularization of the Internet has further accelerated the pace of Telehealth technology advancements, thereby expanding the scope of telemedicine to encompass Web-based applications (e.g., e-mail, teleconsultations, and conferences via the Internet) and multimedia approaches (e.g., digital imagery and video). These advancements have led to the creation of a rich tapestry of telemedicine applications that the world is coming to use.