What does store-and-forward mean?
In contrast to live-interactive telemedicine encounters, store-and-forward means the health provider where the patient is at stores the data from the encounter in a digital format, and then forwards them at the time of the encounter, or at a selected later time. The advantage is, the receiver of the information (usually a specialist at a tertiary care center in the same telemedicine network) typically can receive that information at anytime during the day. The specialist can then review the data when he next logs on to his computer, and review the encounters based on level of urgency, and makes the treatment and follow-up recommendations to the primary care provider at the local level. Those recommendations are usually transmitted using the same store-and-forward technology.
