Telehealthcare for long term conditions.

Telehealthcare is the provision of personalised health­ care over a distance. It has the three following essential co mponents : • The patient provides data such as a voice recording, video, electrocardiography, or oxygen saturation that gives information about the illness. • Information is transferred electronically to a healthcare professional at a second location. • The healthcare professional uses clinical skills and judgment to provide personalised feedback tailored to the individual. Telehealthcare can be delivered by both synchronous and asynchronous (such as store and forward) technologies (fig 1). For example, telephone and video conferencing ena­ ble consultations in real time. An example of asynchronous communication would be storing two weeks’ of spirometry