A survey of Norwegian telemedicine

To get an overview of Norwegian telemedicine, a questionnaire was sent to t he contact persons of telemedicine programmes. There was an 83% response ra te from 102 telemedicine programmes; there were 66 active research projects . Several larger networks had recently started operation, probably as a res ult of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs' plan of action on informa tion and communication technology in health care. Twenty-one programmes inv olved primary care or home care. Few programmes were using telemedicine to bridge established divisions of service responsibility or to make connectio ns to institutions abroad. There were three large national research program mes in which telemedicine played an important role. Research projects were evaluating the economic, organizational and sociological aspects of telemed icine, as well as the medical. The oldest telemedicine activities were in n orthern Norway.