Canada develops models of teleoncology.

W ant to get oncology care to a small population spread over a large area? Canada is a case in point of a country rising to that challenge. In Canada, with a land mass spanning more than 3.8 million square miles and a population of only 34 million tucked mainly into a few urban centers, telemedicine is just about the only economically feasible option for delivering quality health care to the hundreds of small communities scattered throughout its northern regions. (By contrast, the U.S. has a population of 314 million people on 3.7 million square miles.) Perhaps not surprisingly, Canada has spawned one of the world’s largest telemedicine networks, and oncology is a big part of that.