Wootton R, Hebert M A
Centre for Online Health, University of Queensland, Australia.
J Telemed Telecare. 2001;7 Suppl 2:3-7. doi: 10.1258/1357633011937245.
Before telehealth applications can be judged, there must be some general understanding about what constitutes success. At first sight it seems that defining success in a telehealth application should be relatively easy: a successful application is one that produces high-quality care at low cost. However, the calculation of cost requires some care, since it depends on assuming a particular financial perspective (the patient's, the health-care provider's, or society's) and is meaningless without a statement of the workload being handled. Other factors include the context in which the service is being delivered. Ultimately, the political imperative may override any rational judgement of success.
在对远程医疗应用进行评判之前，必须对何为成功有一些总体的认识。乍一看，似乎在远程医疗应用中定义成功应该相对容易：一个成功的应用就是以低成本提供高质量医疗服务的应用。然而，成本的计算需要谨慎，因为它取决于假设一个特定的财务视角（患者的、医疗服务提供者的或社会的），并且在没有说明所处理工作量的情况下是没有意义的。其他因素包括提供服务的背景。最终，政治上的必要性可能会凌驾于对成功的任何理性判断之上。
