A telemedicine guideline for the practice of teleconsultation
Asbach, P.; Nerlich, M.
Studies in Health Technology and Informatics 97: 1-14
2003
ISSN/ISBN: 0926-9630 PMID: 15537225 Document Number: 553448
To establish a guideline for the use of teleconsultation, which is one of the most important applications in telemedicine beeing perfomed very frequently in daily medical practice in almost any field of medicine. The recommendations are based on expert knowledge, because of the lack of evidence based data in the telemedical scientific literature. In addition, scientific articles of the highest level of evidence available published between 1970 and 1999 were reviewed. DEVELOPEMENT AND CONSENUS PROCESS: A guideline draft was prepared using the attributes of clinical practice guidelines developed by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences. This draft was reviewed by telemedicine experts and the content of the guideline was approved by 100% group consensus in 5 meetings held between 1997 and 2000 by a panel of members of the Subproject 4 Group of the Global Health Care Application Project of the G8 countries. The guideline gives recommendations on all aspects of teleconsultation in any field of medicine and will be updated regularly implementing new evidence.