Evaluating telemedicine: lessons and challenges

Telemedicine applications have been rapidly implemented since the early 1990s and are now in use in a wide range of healthcare settings. There is, however, limited evidence of clinical benefits resulting from their use. this paper describes the design and implementation of a multi-method evaluation of an emergency telemedicine applications clinical impact. In particular, the challenges faced and lessons learnt regarding the development of a suitable methodology and collection of health information from a variety of sources are discussed. In order to understand the applications clinical impact it was necessary to use different types of data from multiple sources, and to interpret the results from each enquiry in relation to results from the others.