Rural Locations and Cancer Care Challenges

Mortality rates for road traffic accidents, asthma, and cancer are worse in rural areas. Cancer is diagnosed at a later stage and intervention rates for coronary artery disease (key government targets for health improvement) are lower (Baird et al., 2006). Telemedicine can be costeffective for different entities of care. For example, teleoncology is obviously cost-effective for the patients themselves. It’s also cost-effective for the receiving rural facility, because they can keep their pharmacy, x-ray, and other patient charges locally. Telemedicine is cost-effective to the extent that our oncologists don't have to travel to those distant facilities (Cancer Care & Economics, 2007). Generally aim of this systematic review is to survey impacts of modern communication and computer technology on the delivery of cancer preventive services in remote locations.