Can store-and-forward telemedicine consultations be acceptable alternatives to real-time consultations?
Self-monitoring/testing telemedicine services enable physicians and other health care providers to monitor physiologic measurements, test results, images, and sounds, usually collected in a patient’s residence or a care facility. Post-acute-care patients, patients with chronic illnesses, and patients with conditions that limit their mobility often require close monitoring and followup. Telemedicine programs use a variety of strategies to accomplish this monitoring while reducing the need for face-to-face visits that may be inconvenient or costly for the patient. The close monitoring afforded by these approaches may allow better care through earlier detection of problems, and may therefore reduce costs. Clinician-interactive telemedicine services are real-time clinician-patient interactions that, in the conventional approach, require face-to-face encounters between a patient and a physician or other health care provider. Examples of clinician-interactive services that might be delivered
