The promise of telemedicine

We have developed an extraordinary capability to capture and transmit digital ocular imaging, enabling remote interpretation of every aspect of the eye. The issues regarding telemedicine were primarily technical and procedural when this journal first reviewed the topic in 1999. Fourteen years later, telemedicine presents strikingly different challenges-legal, ethical, and professional. Some “tele-ophthalmology” applications have now become a reliable part of daily practice. Although it offers improved health care at lower cost to more people, telemedicine could also radically transform the traditional doctor-patient interaction.