Governments have played a key role in demonstrating through pilot projects the feasibility and the validity of the telemedicine concept, a new way to deliver health care. However, more and more private projects are now being initiated and the role of governments evolves to support the private initiatives of telecommunications companies, healthcare centers, or international organizations. Space industries have accumulated extensive experience of telemedicine over almost forty years of manned space flights, and could be an important interface between the medical fields, telecommunications suppliers and information technologies. Worldwide cover, total accessibility, mobility, flexibility and reliability are also key assets of space communications which represent the added value of space in the telemedicine market. Space industries have to go ahead, working in cooperation with physicians to provide the telemedicine market with services fitting the users' needs.
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