title: The socio-economic impact of telehealth: a systematic review.
abstract: We reviewed the socio-economic impact of telehealth, focusing on nine main areas: paediatrics, geriatrics, First Nations (i.e. indigenous peoples), home care, mental health, radiology, renal dialysis, rural/remote health services and rehabilitation. A systematic search led to the identification of 4646 citations or abstracts; from these, 306 sources were analysed. A central finding was that telehealth studies to date have not used socio-economic indicators consistently. However, specific telehealth applications have been shown to offer significant socio-economic benefit, to patients and families, health-care providers and the health-care system. The main benefits identified were: increased access to health services, cost-effectiveness, enhanced educational opportunities, improved health outcomes, better quality of care, better quality of life and enhanced social support. Although the review found a number of areas of socio-economic benefit, there is the continuing problem of limited generalizability.
authors.affiliation: Health Telematics Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. jennett@ucalgary.ca
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Jennett
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Affleck Hall
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hailey
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ohinmaa
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Young
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lorenzetti
authors.forename: R E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Scott
mesh_terms: D015982:Bias; D006296:Health Services; D006801:Humans; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011788:Quality of Life; D012944:Social Support; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000191:economics / Q000941:ethics