A Brief History Of Telemedicine

June 29, 2006

It may seem that the piqued interest in telemedicine over the last few years can be attributed to telecom advances. The truth is that telemedicine has been around since the 1960s, when astronauts first went into space. In fact, NASA built telemedicine technology into early spacecraft and spacesuits to monitor astronauts' physiological parameters. Yet other milestones mark telemedicine's journey to where it is today.

1964: Under a grant from the U.S. National Institute for Mental Health (NMH), the Nebraska Psychiatric Institute began using a two-way closed-circuit TV link between the Institute itself and Norfolk State Hospital about 112 miles away. The link was used for education and consultations between specialists and general practitioners.
1967: A medical station was established at Boston's Logan International Airport and linked to Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), miles away within the city of Boston. Physicians at MGH provided medical care to patients at the airport 24 hours a day, using a two-way microwave audio/video link.
1971: The U.S. National Library of Medicine's Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communication chose 26 sites in Alaska to verify the reliability of telemedicine via satellite communications. NASA's ATS-1 satellite was used for this experiment.
1972: NASA began trial runs of its Space Technology Applied to Rural Papago Advanced Health Care (STARPAHC) program for telemedical help for people living in remote locations with little or no medical services, like Arizona's Papago Indian Reservation. Engineered by NASA and Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. (now Lockheed-Martin), the system used two-way microwave transmissions to link paramedical personnel located in mobile (vans) and fixed stations with medical experts at hospitals in Tucson and Phoenix. The program lasted until 1975.
1972: The Health Care Technology Division of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) funded seven telemedicine research and demonstration projects: the Illinois Mental Health Institutes in Chicago, Ohio's Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Massachusetts' Cambridge Hospital, Illinois' Bethany/Garfield Medical Center in Chicago, Minnesota's Lakeview Clininc in Waconia, Dartmouth Medical School's INTERACT in Hanover, N.H., and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. The next year, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) funded two more telemedicine projects: the Boston Nursing Home project for geriatric patients, and the Miami-Dade project between Florida's Dade County and Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital.
1977: Canada's Memorial University of Newfoundland participated in a Canadian Space Program for distance education and medical care, using the joint Canadian/U.S. Hermes satellite.
1984: The North-West Telemedicine project was set up in Australia to pilot test the Australia government's Q-Network satellite communications network. The project's goal was to provide health care to people in five remote towns south of the Gulf of Carpentaria.
1989: After a massive earthquake hit the Soviet Republic of Armenia, the U.S. offered the Soviet Union, under the auspices of the U.S./U.S.S.R. Joint Working Group on Space Biology, use of a one-way international telemedicine network for consultations between Yerevan, Armenia, and four medical centers in the U.S. The Space Bridge program was later extended to Ufa, Russia.

About the Author

Roger Allan

Roger Allan is an electronics journalism veteran, and served as Electronic Design's Executive Editor for 15 of those years. He has covered just about every technology beat from semiconductors, components, packaging and power devices, to communications, test and measurement, automotive electronics, robotics, medical electronics, military electronics, robotics, and industrial electronics. His specialties include MEMS and nanoelectronics technologies. He is a contributor to the McGraw Hill Annual Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. He is also a Life Senior Member of the IEEE and holds a BSEE from New York University's School of Engineering and Science. Roger has worked for major electronics magazines besides Electronic Design, including the IEEE Spectrum, Electronics, EDN, Electronic Products, and the British New Scientist. He also has working experience in the electronics industry as a design engineer in filters, power supplies and control systems.

After his retirement from Electronic Design Magazine, He has been extensively contributing articles for Penton’s Electronic Design, Power Electronics Technology, Energy Efficiency and Technology (EE&T) and Microwaves RF Magazine, covering all of the aforementioned electronics segments as well as energy efficiency, harvesting and related technologies. He has also contributed articles to other electronics technology magazines worldwide.

He is a “jack of all trades and a master in leading-edge technologies” like MEMS, nanolectronics, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, military electronics, biometrics, implantable medical devices, and energy harvesting and related technologies.