Telemedicine is the use of electronic and telecommunications technologies to provide and support health care access when distance separates physicians and their patients. We have established 25 telemedicine linkages, which provide rapid access to University of Maryland, Baltimore clinical and research resources. Linkages are used to facilitate continuing professional education for health care providers, physician consultations, community/public education, faculty research projects, and for other clinical and administrative purposes.

We support faculty telemedicine projects, which include:

• Teleophthalmology to diagnose eye disease in the community setting;
• Standardized stroke education for Maryland health care professionals;
• State of the art radiation therapy for cancer patients; and
• Home telehealth pilot program with Garrett County Health Department.

These telehealth projects provide many benefits to the community, because telemedicine:

• Improves access to medical care for geographically or socio-economically isolated patients;
• Prevents unnecessary patient travel to secondary or tertiary health care centers;
• Promotes education, prevention, clinical trials and other programs;
• Facilitates community education concerning pertinent health care topics;
• Augments the quality, continuity and affordability of medical care;
• Preserves the patient’s current provider-to-patient relationship while facilitating access to specialty care;
• Enhances continuing medical education and support for rural-based providers and removes the obstacle of professional isolation; and
• Allows patients to obtain medical consultation in their own communities.