Telemedical work and cooperation

In telemedicine, cooperation occurs via telecommunication. This represents a new situation for medical cooperation. Whether such cooperation works poo rly or well will be important with an increasing volume of telemedicine. Wh en personnel are involved in external cooperation, as in telemedicine, the question of cooperation within one's own organization also arises. To inves tigate these matters, qualitative interviews were performed with 30 persons working in teledermatology, telepsychiatry, a telepathology frozen-section service and tele-otolaryngology. The results showed that cooperating by te lecommunication mainly worked well. The cooperation may be influenced by fa ctors such as personality, knowing each other personally, preparation and e xperience. Telemedical teamwork may be improved by factors like experience and education. Working with telemedicine did not reduce the personnel's coo peration within their own organizations, but rather improved it, although t his effect was slight and most commonly involved improved knowledge of othe rs. In general, the findings concerning cooperation and telemedicine were p ositive.