Telemedicine: a dream come true?

The UN millennium goals 4 and 5 aim to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health.1 The international community has done a lot of work to bring us closer to these goals, “… but we are moving much too slow” as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated in the 2009 Millennium Development Goals Report. One of the difficulties being faced is the access to healthcare. The majority of people in developing countries live in rural areas, while the majority of their physicians live in urban areas. Telemedicine has been suggested as a partial solution to this discrepancy. Online consultation may be cheaper and faster for patients who otherwise have to travel long distances to visit a clinic.2 In their paper, Singh …