Implementing a Statewide Health Care Network

n JAMIA. 1998;5:441–447. Existing trends in health care, coupled with advances in technology and related economics, have led to widespread interest in telemedicine services. These services typically include transmission of multimedia information in support of interactive video consultation, both radiologic and nonradiologic imaging, and text and physiologic monitoring. The diversity of applications for which telemedicine is applied is certain to grow dramatically. In July 1996, work was initiated on a program to establish integrated telemedicine services supporting several rural sites in the state of Arizona. This paper describes the requirements that guided the selection of the wide area networking and Affiliation of the authors: Arizona Health Sciences Center, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. This work was supported by funding from the state of Arizona and in part by contract 656017 from the Arizona Department of Health Services, grant SWAOB (AZ702-A17) from the Department of Agriculture (DOA), and grant CSHTM0017-01 from the Health Resources and Services Administration. Correspondence and reprints: Kevin M. McNeill, PhD, P.O. Box 245067, Department of Radiology, Arizona Health Sciences Center, Tucson, AZ 85724-5067. e-mail: ^[email protected]&. Received for publication: 1/16/98; accepted for publication: 5/21/98. application technology used to support the program. It also describes some of the complexities that may be encountered in implementing a statewide telemedicine network in collaboration with multiple organizations and provides a status report of the information technology aspects of the program.