Assessing the economic impact of telemedicine

Telemedicine is a communications technology that can be expected to influen ce investment in equipment, the delivery and organisation of health service s and outcomes of healthcare. Analysis of the economic impact of telemedici ne has so far been limited and has focused on cost studies for individual a pplications. Telemedicine initiatives should be compared with conventional alternatives. A search of recent literature revealed 20 such studies that i ncluded, usually limited, economic analyses. It is important to note, howev er; that such assessments apply to localised situations and may not he gene ralisable. Overall, the potential impact of telemedicine on healthcare syst ems remains unclear. The challenges that lie ahead for telemedicine, and its economic assessment , include technological change, sustainability of applications, availabilit y of outcomes and other data, and generalisability of evaluation results.