Broadband telecommunications: the bricks and mortar of future eMental health systems

Abstract

Health care will undoubtedly change over the next 20 or 30 years as eHealth technologies become increasingly used and accepted (Treister, 1997; Yellowlees, 1997, 2001). At a global level, the health care system is moving away from episodic care to concentrating on continuity of care, especially for patients with chronic diseases (Yack, 2000), who will give rise to the greatest disease burden in the future (Murray & Lopez, 1999). Many countries are gradually moving away from a focus on the service provider to a focus on the informed patient, and from an individual approach to treatment to a team approach. Increasingly there is a concern less with the treatment of illness and more with the need for wellness promotion and illness prevention, which, of course, parallels a shift away from traditional care to community care.