Abstract
Telemedicine is a continually evolving area, and a book such as this offers an excellent point of reference for anyone interested in telemedicine and how it is currently shaping healthcare delivery all over the world. The chapters in this book explore the growth of telemedicine deployment in both urban and rural areas, the various ways in which information on the human body's vital signs are captured and processed, and also the many challenges facing telemedicine applications and technologies. The introductory chapter discusses the emergence of telemedicine, introduces the reader to what telemedicine in its current form involves, and explores its role from the perspectives of healthcare professionals, the patient, the information technology developer, and the authorities. The book then becomes more technical in nature and describes what telecommunication technology involves and how it can be applied to better healthcare. The authors avoid delving too deep into the engineering and mathematical aspects of the technology but do not omit it completely, and as a result the book gives the reader an interesting insight into the world of telemedicine and the arrangement of technology it uses.
The core chapters of the book inspect the technologies in patient monitoring and medical information processing, wireless telemedicine and its deployment, issues and challenges surrounding safeguarding medical data and privacy, and the role of telemedicine in alternative medicine and the community and concludes with the authors examining the possible future trends in healthcare technology. The range of applications covered in the book is very comprehensive, which clearly indicates the authors' extensive experience in the area of telemedicine research, and the result is a very informative book on telemedicine technologies. Notable chapters include “Technologies in Medical Information Processing” (Chapter 4) and “Caring for the Community” (Chapter 8).
Processing medical information is examined in Chapter 4 and illustrates what health-related information can be collected, and how. The chapter discusses remote monitoring of body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen saturation, and respiration rate. Upon introducing what telemedicine can do for patient monitoring, the authors use simple mathematics to explain in more technical detail how information can be transmitted and processed. Another area of focus in this chapter is the issues surrounding faithful reproduction of transmitted medical imaging, magnetic resonance imaging, and x-ray information to the remote analyst. Biopotential electrode sensing, patient records, and the “electronic drug store” application of telemedicine are also featured in this chapter, making it a comprehensive section examining many aspects of information processing.
It is well recognized that the aging populations in most developed countries are increasing rapidly and that this trend will certainly lead to a shortage of caregivers and funding for elderly care in the future. Community care has been put forward by many academics and policy makers as a solution to this issue, and as a result this topic is one that could not be omitted from such a text as the one being reviewed. Chapter 8 describes telecare as a process of putting “the two otherwise contradictory attributes, independence and monitoring, together in a mutually supporting way” (p. 195), and this chapter explores the role of telecare in caring for elderly populations. The authors describe how a simple mobile phone device might be customized to record vital signs such as heart and respiratory rates, act as a home medication console, or even help ensure that the person does not leave his or her home without house keys. However, although the section illustrates several interesting applications, it fails to cover the area extensively. The chapter also briefly examines healthcare access for rural areas, medical radiation and telecare, and energy conservation and safety.
In the final chapter, entitled “Future Trends in Healthcare Technology,” the authors further examine home care for the elderly, smart home assistive technologies, and the embedding of computational intelligence into clothing and also discuss haptic sensing for practitioners. The final section of this chapter outlines the potential role of telemedicine in a person's life from being a newborn through to retirement. This section brings together many of the focuses of the previous chapters into a simple hypothetical example of how telemedicine applications can become simply integrated into everyday life.
Overall, this is a thought-stimulating book and is easily suitable for students of various health-related disciplines such as biomedical engineering, health informatics, and medicine. Certain medical professionals and information technology designers would also find significance in this book as it offers a valuable insight into the world of telemedicine and the benefits and challenges of its systems. Although the major positive of the text is its wide-ranging content, unfortunately, the way in which certain sections have been delivered could still be considered too technical, and indeed other sections might even be considered overly simplified. International comparisons, extensive use of telemedicine case studies, and comprehensive references to international policy are overlooked in this book, and their addition would make Telemedicine Technologies: Information Technologies in Medicine and Telehealth a more well-rounded text.
The authors have attempted to write a book that would appeal to many readers, and in doing so they have written a text that is more suitable as a starting point for those interested in telemedicine rather than a core academic research text. Nevertheless, the book offers an interesting insight into current and future telemedicine and introduces the reader to applications that could be shaping the healthcare systems of the very near future.