Telemedicine's Challenges for the Medical Profession
Telemedicine—the use of communication technology to connect patients in one location with clinicians in another—can reduce inequalities in access to care and lead to better health outcomes. Skeptics worry that these benefits are outweighed by diminished privacy and security of medical information and loss of the therapeutic value in hands-on encounters between patients and their physicians. Many contributors to the December issue believe that, through its novelty, telemedicine draws our attention to the ever-present need for improving access to care, privacy the security of medical information, and the quality of patient-physician relationships for all patients.