Technological and Economic Assessment of Telemedicine: An Example of DoD MEDNETin Region Three

摘要

The Department of Defense (DoD) has numerous initiatives underway to improve thehealth care delivery system within the military. Telemedicine is one of these initiatives that combine images, videos, sounds, and text to enhance the health care providers' ability to diagnosis and treat patients. The Secretary of the Army in October 1994 established, The Center for Total Access as a laboratory for healthcare re-engineering in the military. This thesis is provided as a resource guide to inform those who may become involved with this complex and chaotic field of telemedicine by providing a review of state-of-the-art technology that can support delivery of telemedicine, and by proposing a cost benefit framework for telemedicine configuration design. The material for this thesis was primarily researched utilizing Internet web browsing technologies. A review of the Tri-Service Infrastructure Management Program Office (TIMPO) project (MEDNET) is outlined as working example of a large regional telemedicine I telehealth system which was found to be the most revealing in the study of telemedicine.