It is timely that the Health Authority - Abu Dhabi has recently introduced regulations to define minimum standards for telemedicine as a means to provide healthcare services to patients in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

What is Telemedicine?

The term “Telemedicine” generally refers to the use of information and communications technology to transfer medical information from one site to another to improve a patient's clinical health status.

Remote diagnosis and consultation through the application of telecommunications is not a new phenomenon. For example, back in the 1930s pioneers living in remote areas of Australia used two-way radios to communicate with the Royal Flying Doctor Service.  

However advances in technology together with the growing availability of broadband on ultra fast fiber and 4G mobile networks means that right now telemedicine is rapidly evolving  to cover a variety of applications using voice, video or image data.