Right Technology, Right Situation - a Case Report on Prehospital Telemedicine

Abstract

Telemedicine can be conducted through a range of media including phone, facsimile, email, Internet, or by fixed, satellite or microwave video-conferencing. Interestingly the technology does not always need to be complicated, as demonstrated by the first recorded instance of telemedicine, which occurred when Morse Code was used from an Antarctic base to the Australian mainland for medical advice. Nowadays NASA uses extremely sophisticated telemetry systems to monitor the health of astronauts, since it would cost many millions of dollars to evacuate a sick member to earth.