What is Telehealth?
In Missouri, telehealth is defined as the delivery of health care services by means of information and communication technologies, which facilitate the assessment, diagnosis, consultation, treatment, education, care management, and self-management of a patient’s health care while such a patient is at the originating site and the health care provider is at the distant site.
Telehealth enables interactions among providers, as well as providers with their patients, regardless of location, which saves time and money.
Telehealth does not create new or different health care services. Rather, it provides a new way to deliver existing services.
Telehealth includes:
- Videoconferencing, which allows a patient to have a live, real-time interaction with a specialist, almost as if they are in the same room.
- Remote patient monitoring, which includes technology to monitor a patient outside a clinical setting, such as at her home.
- Store-and-forward, which are still images combined with patient data transmitted from one location to another and asynchronously consulted with provider.
MTN Services
The Missouri Telehealth Network has experience and expertise to:
- Train start-up telemedicine programs in all crucial areas: clinical, technical, operational, legal and regulatory, and evaluation
- Provide individualized training programs on or off-site
- Increase access to health care via telehealth services for rural Missourians
- Provide technical assistance to health care organizations and other stakeholders
- Develop telehealth policy
- Coordinate educational outreach
- Partner on telehealth projects
- Manage statewide telehealth projects
