What constitutes success in telehealth?
Before telehealth applications can be judged, there must be some general understanding about what constitutes success. At first sight it seems that defining success in a telehealth application should be relatively easy: a successful application is one that produces high-quality care at low cost. However, the calculation of cost requires some care, since it depends on assuming a particular financial perspective (the patient's, the health-care provider's, or society's) and is meaningless without a statement of the workload being handled. Other factors include the context in which the service is being delivered. Ultimately, the political imperative may override any rational judgement of success.
Wootton
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Centre for Online Health, University of Queensland, Australia. r.wootton@pobox.com
Hebert
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MA
D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D015397:Program Evaluation; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards*