IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

However there have been mixed reactions from doctors, who say that, while it will have its uses, there could be risks of misdiagnoses.

"Telemedicine [medical services over the internet] is not 'the' solution, but is 'a' solution," said the then health minister, Roselyne Bachelot, announcing a decree setting out rules on telemedicine. "The regional health agencies will authorise schemes taking into account the population's needs," she added.

Mr Jacquinet made the announcement at a symposium that took place in Marseille marking the anniversary of the establishment of the ARS.

"We will pilot teleconsultation for inmates in one of the penal institutions in the region," said Mr Jaquinet at a telehealth roundtable. He noted that the ARS Picardy is currently deliberating over the issue, which falls under the framework of the national plan for access to healthcare in prisons, and in the context of the growing demand for healthcare and specialised expertise in prisons.

With 5 800 residents, the Cilaos commune is one of the most isolated areas on Réunion Island. Since November 2007, the commune's only hospital has been providing emergency care via telemedicine in cooperation with Unit 15 of the South Reunion Hospital Group (GHSR) in Saint-Pierre, which is 45 km away, but requires a travel time of 90 minutes along an abrupt route.

“This mode of exercise [telemedicine] is a response to the medical demography inequalities: where health care resources may be more rare, mainly in isolated areas (islands, rural areas, mountain areas, suburbs, prisons),” a spokesperson from France’s Direction générale de l’offre de soins (DGOS), writes in an email, while insisting on anonymity.

There aren't too many doctors in the village of Hari Ke Kalan, in the Punjab region of northern India. But for $1, residents who bicycle to a new health clinic in town can get an appointment with a physician who appears on a large-screen television, beamed in over broadband Internet.

The clinic, built by a startup called Healthpoint Services, is one of a network of eight "e-health points" that the for-profit company has built in India as part of a growing effort by entrepreneurs to capitalize on the rapid expansion of cellular and broadband access in the poorest parts of the world. With successes such as text-message-based mobile payments taking off in some countries, many experts see medicine as the next major application of technology in poor nations.

The Age UK funded research into who uses telecare by the Strategic Society Centre said that four million people could benefit from using personal alarms and alerting devices.

But of this group only 113,000 people currently received care from their council. 1.9 million people relied on care from family members and a further 1.9 million received no support.

The study, conducted by the Nuffield Trust, showed that patients using telehealth contacted GPs as often as those who did not, concluding it will not reduce GPs’ workloads, despite Government claims that telehealth scheme will reduce the burden on GPs.

This follows a similar study this week that showed that telemonitoring fails to cut hospital admissions for COPD patients, and other studies that have called into question the benefits and value of telehealth, including the Government’s own Whole Systems Demonstrator study.

The official evaluation of the Department of Health funded Whole Systems Demonstrator pilot showed the approach had just an 11% likelihood of proving cost-effective for the NHS at this threshold, when added to standard care.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told an Age UK conference that seven ‘pathfinders’, including CCGs and local authorities, are set to agree contracts with suppliers to offer telehealth to patients in the next year. This will pave the way for the Department of Health to reach its target of offering the service to three million people by 2017.

The paper examined the cost effectiveness of telehealth, compared with standard support and treatment, looking at patients with a long-term condition such as heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or diabetes between May 2008 and December 2009.

Of participants taking part in the study, 845 were randomly selected to receive telehealth and 728 to usual care.

The government said it wanted 100,000 people with long-term conditions across England to benefit in the next year from new health technologies from telehealth – the use of electronic information and technology to help people manage their health independently without the need of seeing a GP or going to hospital.

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt announced yesterday that plans to roll out telehealth to a significant number of patients are now well underway.

It's four years since the whole system demonstrator (WSD) programme began investigating the potential benefits of telecare and several months since David Cameron promised the government would implement it nationally.

Now the Department of Health (DH) is at "mobilisation stage, getting everyone teed up" to offer telecare and telehealth to those with chronic illnesses, according to care services minister Paul Burstow.

Paul Burstow, the care services minister, has indicated that he would like to see telehealth and telecare services provided to the NHS without the need for up-front capital payments.

Speaking at the King's Fund international congress on telehealth and telecare, Burstow said a community nurse supervisor should be able to pay for a blood pressure monitor through a monthly contract, in a similar way to that in which people pay for iPhones or Blackberrys.

The technology enables patients to perform vital health checks at home, with the results sent electronically to their GP without them visiting the surgery.

For instance, people with long-term heart or lung conditions may be offered high-tech equipment that records their vital signs and sends the details to medical staff for monitoring.

For the past year there has been a caring new man in 71-year-old Vera Swanson’s life.

Every morning, shortly after she has made her first cup of tea of the day for herself and her husband James, her new man’s smooth voice politely guides her through a health check.

Together they take her temperature, blood pressure, oxygen levels and pulse.

The new technology sits on top of the television and patients make their own checks, such as blood pressure and weight, the results of which they send via broadband to the team at Liverpool Community Health NHS Trust.

Called Telehealth, the technology allows patients with long-term health conditions to be managed and monitored in their own homes, with clinicians able to decide when they need face to attention.

The Scottish government and the UK Technology Strategy Board are to jointly fund a £10M telehealth project, showing how various stands of technology can be brought together to form the basis of products and services that will make it possible for old and disabled people to live independently in their own homes.

Up to 100,000 people will be able to use their broadband connection to access health services during 2013, according to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Speaking at an Age UK conference, the minister announced the launch of telehealth, in which electronic information and technology are used to help people independently manage their own wellbeing.

The ‘telehealth’ initiative will mean people with long term problems like diabetes and heart disease do not have to go to their local surgery or hospital for routine checks.

Instead, they will be able to take readings of health measures like blood pressure and blood glucose levels themselves at home, log them with doctors and nurses online, and converse with them via the web.