The development of telework in the health care industries

摘要

Telemedicine is a kind of telework application which refers to the performance of an information task remotely from the traditional work place in a hospital or clinic via communication technology in the health care industries. The requirement on real-time multimedia data transmission along the telecommunication channel for solving critical cases often complicates the design of telemedicine. This paper investigates the current development of telemedicine in Hong Kong and its ability to support collaborative work through image-transfer and video-conferencing between professionals across different health care organizations. We also propose a model for the development of telemedicine in the light that it can bring new insights into how telework can be used to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of medical services by including remote "customers" or "patients". We further discuss the needs of telemedicine in Hong Kong, how the proposed model can be implemented based on existing development, and the benefits it brings.