Australian Telehealth: Glossary of Terms

Ilse Blignault, Meredythe Crane

Research output: Book/Research ReportAuthored Book

Abstract

In the Australian context, telehealth refers to a health delivery system that provides health related activities at a distance between two or more locations using technology-assisted communications (National Telehealth Committee, 1996). Although telehealth is not new, recent years have seen a significant expansion of telehealth applications associated with rapid technological advances and dramatic reductions in costs. Current telehealth practice incorporates videoconferencing for consultations, counselling, supervision, education, training and administration; medical image and data transfer; and access to databases and multimedia information. These new activities complement older, well established activities such as telephone triage and counselling. Telehealth is used across a range of specialties, including mental health, radiology, pathology, paediatrics and renal medicine. Unfortunately, evaluation and research have not kept up with the pace of telehealth development and expansion. The lack of a glossary of terms has been a major impediment. This project was undertaken in order to provide telehealth practitioners and those with an interest in telehealth, especially in telehealth evaluation, with a set of common terms, concepts and definitions useful to working in the field.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationBrisbane, Qld.
PublisherQueensland Telemedicine Network
Number of pages56
ISBN (Print)9781742493053
Publication statusPublished - 1999

Keywords

  • telecommunication in medicine

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