Development and Recent Achievements of Telemedicine in China

Despite a late entry into telemedicine, the field is developing very fast in China with considerable research. This review of telemedicine in China is based upon the perspectives of teleconsultation, telemedicine academic activities, and education. Recent integration of telemedicine is called Regional Collaborative Medical Services and this program is described. Although China started to study and implement telemedicine much later than other advanced countries, telemedicine is developing very fast in this country. Research on telemedicine is also getting popular, and more and more teleconsultant systems are being carried out. For the purpose of assessing the development of telemedicine in China over these past 50 years, we conducted a study of three elements, namely (1) teleconsultations, (2) academic activities, and (3) education. We carried out our study from three perspectives: the teleconsultant, telemedicine academic activities, and telemedicine education. In this article, we also show our recent achievement in telemedicine based on the Regional Collaborative Medical Service.