Editorial: Time for telemedicine to become integral to mainstream care

Telemedicine must move to the forefront of medical efforts to achieve better than "marginal" improvement in efficiency and quality, according to an editorial published in Telemedicine and e-Health.

Rashid L. Bashshur, director of telemedicine at the University of Michigan Health System, wrote that it's time to establish telemedicine as "integral" to care efforts, particularly in conjunction with other information technologies like electronic and personal health records. "We are at the threshold of a new environment in which telemedicine, broadly defined, must be an essential part of mainstream healthcare if patients are to receive the appropriate care, at the appropriate site, by the appropriate provider while avoiding duplication and waste."

However, telemedicine has yet to be explicitly linked to Meaningful Use.