8) Telemedicine and the Development of History of Health Sciences

History of Telemedicine and Importance of Libraries
By: Patrick Corcoran, MLIS candidate, University of Southern Mississippi

Physician gives a quick example of the importance of telemedicine when helping underrepresented groups, as can also be the case when libraries empower those same people with information access.      (CCHPCA, 2012)

   Telemedicine combines telecommunication technology developed since the mid-20th Century, and, modern medicine skills.  The U.S. National Library of Medicine defines telemedicine as "the use of computers, the Internet, and other communication technologies to provide medical care information to patients at a distance" (NLM, 2015, telemedicine).  The NLM goes on to explain how important this field is for libraries and information technology zones, as, both, stewards and preservers of this burgeoning new mixture of professional fields of study.  Further information can be found under the title of the NLM National Telemedicine Initiative.
   In her paper "Telecommunications and Medicine: The Development of Telemedicine in Improving Access to Health Care in Rural Areas of East Tennessee", Dr. Teresa Welsh uses several examples explaining that point, as well as, concluding "If research results prove the value of this project, that telemedicine from the University of Tennessee Medical center to smaller, rural emergency services can save lives and/or improve the level of health care, then the program may be permanently implemented and expanded to give greater access to trauma care in rural areas" (Welsh, 1999).  Correlations may be drawn betwixt the importance of technology in rural health care, whether it be through a physician or a librarian.  Librarians, generally being the technology and health information "go-to's" of their community, rural communities included, makes telemedicine and libraries obvious allies.
   In addition to telemedicine, the ability to make medical information easily available, on demand, is a matter of life and death.  A personal view of this author is that information, that is being digitized and set out on-line, from historic texts in history of medicine or allied sciences archives, will, one day, be realized as filling in our modern gaps of medical knowledge.  This will assist our global society to, not only gather a more holistic collection of choices for an individual patient, but also help strengthen chronic and acute disease prevention.

Bibliography

CCHPCA-Center for Connected Health Policy. (2012). Telehealth technologies-The tools for 21st century health care.  [audiovisual]. Retrieve from https://youtu.be/azXV5-obOAQ

NLM-National Library of Medicine. (2015). Telemedicine. Retrieved from    https://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/telemedinit.html 

Welsh, T.S. (1999). Telecommunications and medicine: The development of telemedicine in improving access to health  care in rural areas of east Tennessee. Retrieved from http://ocean.otr.usm.edu/~w146169/telemed.htm