PRESENT APPLICATIONS AND FUTURE-PROSPECTS

Information technology has enabled much of the business community to f unction in a time and place-independent manner. Health care has lagged in adopting this technology because of tradition, concern for patient security and confidentiality, liability, and licensure issues. This a rticle reviews the current state of telemedicine technology, its appli cations, and opportunities for further development. Urology is identif ied as a specialty that stands to benefit from advances in technologie s applicable to remote diagnosis, monitoring and care of patients, phy sician training, and record keeping.