Telemedicine in diabetic retinopathy: current status and future directions.

Telemedicine is exchange of medical data by electronic telecommunications technology that allows a patient's medical problems evaluated and monitored by a remotely located physician. Over the years, telemedicine and telescreening have become important components in health care, in both disease detection and treatment. Highly visual and image intensive ophthalmology is uniquely suited for telemedicine. Because of rising disease burden coupled with high opportunity cost in detection, diabetic retinopathy is an ideal ophthalmic disease for telescreening and decision-making. It fits to Wilson and Jungner's all 10 criteria of screening for chronic diseases and the American Telehealth Association's 4 screening categories.