Telemedicine today: can late adopters leapfrog!

Telemedicine (ie. the use of telecommunication and information technologies to provide medical care at a distance), has now grown to a considerable extent with the rapid expansion of mHealth (ie. practice of telemedicine using mobile devices). Telemedicine practices from simple activities such as booking of appointments (1) to more complex activities such as performing surgeries in the outer space (2) . Although, mHealth was initially developed in industrialised countries, it has gained attention in less industrialised countries as well. This development was mainly facilitated by the rapid rise of mobile phone penetration in developing/low-income countries. However, for a sustainable system, integration of technologies per se is not enough. Instead, there should be a wider contribution for its management including identification of telehealth policies and practices.