Trends Toward the Development of a New Potential Space Market Providing Satellite Based Telemedical Services

Abstract

Telemedicine can be defined as the use of telecommunications and computer technologies with medical expertise to facilitate remote health care delivery, and its goal is to provide higher quality health care at a lower cost. Medically related services that can be provided by telemedicine are endless and include teleconsultation for isolated or remote sites, transfer of patient data and files, tele-education for medical students and continuing medical education (CME) for doctors, medical support during emergency or disaster relief, at-home patient monitoring, administration, and medical conferences. Until recently, several barriers have prevented a more rapid expansion of telemedical applications and particularly the development of a market providing telemedical services. the value of telemedical applications has been poorly understood and not completely appreciated by the general public, and therefore has not enjoyed as much support as it should have.Recently, the use of telemedicine has seen a significant reduction in cost, an improvement in technology, an increase in its awareness and appreciation, and more experience in its implementation. With the increasing interest in telemedicine in combination with numerous reports of successful telemedical projects, it is expected that telemedicine will be more widely appreciated, accepted, and subsequently applied in everyday medicine. the need for specialized dedicated telemedical services in the near future is evident and the potential for the development of a new space market is real. This paper investigates the role of satellite systems in telemedicine and the features of a new potential space based market in providing telemedical services. This is accomplished by analyzing current trends in telemedicine with reference to cost, technology, availability, law and policy, public awareness, and experience. Medical services that can be provided by telemedicine and the potential savings in using such services are also discussed.KeywordsSatellite SystemContinue Medical EducationAsynchronous Transfer ModeIntegrate Service Digital NetworkSpace MarketThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.