2.5. Telemedicine
Telemedicine is the delivery of healthcare and the exchange of healthcare information across distances. It is not a technology or a separate or new branch of medicine Telemedicine services may be classified on the basis of: (1) the interaction between the client and the expert (e.g., real time or prerecorded), and (2) the type of information being transmitted (e.g. text, audio, video). Telemedicine mostly is used in industrialized countries, such as the USA, but there is increasing interest in the use of telemedicine in developing countries.11
Tele-medicine can be useful in rural areas, prisons and places where access to health institutions is difficult. Additionally, telemedicine activities are used in facilitating the access of disabled and elderly individuals to health services, in facilitating access to services and reducing costs, in responding to complaints or illness more quickly, in preventing unnecessary crowding in health institutions, in providing services to patients in the comfort area.12
Healthcare professionals where distance is a major factor the information and communication technologies can be used for the exchange of valid information for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and injuries, research and evaluation, and for the continuing education.10
Tele-medicine applications can be used in various fields such as tele-radiology, tele-dermatology, tele-pathology, tele-consultation, tele-psychiatry, tele-home care and tele-surgery. The legislation for telemedicine has been comprehensively announced in the Official Gazette on February 10, 2022 with the Regulation On The Provision of Remote Health Services No. 31746. .
The types of tele-medicine are outlined below.
Teleradiology – Although the perception of sharing radiological images is quite high when it comes to tele-medicine, tele-radiology does not mean image and information transmission between two centers, but rather information sharing and working together in a network. Tele-radiology application. It has a facilitating role as it has the task of fast access to radiology reports and second expert opinion, consultation, advanced health care, computer aided diagnosis, education and research projects.13
Telepathology- It refers to the transfer of microscopic images by telecommunication networks. In this application, the pathologist can see the images through a monitor instead of a microscope .13 Tele- dermatology – It is defined as providing remote treatment and opinion on skin diseases and care by using information technologies .13 Tele-dermatology provides patients living in rural areas with the option of being treated without going to distant centers.
Tele-psychiatry- It is stated that patients with psychological disorders receive help from a psychologist or psychiatrist via telephone, e-mail, internet, text message, and video conferencing.14
Tele-home care/health - It is defined as the instantaneous transmission process of the patient’s vital signs (heart chart, sugar, blood pressure, fever, pulse, skin color, oxygen saturation, etc.) to the doctor or doctors via computer software program and smart phone applications.15
2.6. Hospital Information Systems
Hospital information systems can be technically defined as a collection of integrated systems that enable the decision support and communication mechanism in the health institution to operate, while processing, storing and transferring health data to relevant units.
With the effect of the rapid developments in today’s technology and the increasing needs for the rapid processing of information, it reveals the need for the most effective management and control of hospital information systems which provide the highest quality health service to the patients and to manage the resources in the most efficient way.16,17,18
The function of hospital information systems is to monitor all health services provided in the hospital using computers and provide electronic communications of patient health records, administrative and financial data within the institution.19