Telemedicine (for editorial comment, see page 58)

Ideally, health care is a communication-intensive process and information that relates to problem-solving and treatment regimens is exchanged constantly among health workers and between patients and their health-care providers. The primary health-care teams in a remote area of Queensland were linked with their base hospital, regional hospitals, a teaching hospital and an aerial retrieval team by means of AUSSAT 1. This article describes the changes in the health workers' consultations and in their patient-management practices when they used the satellite communications network. These changes resulted in improved health care and reduced some health-care costs.