An editor's view of telemedicine.
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Date
2004-12-17
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Abstract
Should an editor hold a view about telemedicine or should an editor be entirely disinterested The editorial role has been defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and a long list of editorial responsibilities has been set out by the World Association of Medical Editors This represents something of a counsel of perfection although clearly an editor should not have a personal view in the sense of promoting telemedicine or dismissing it Since telemedicine editors are almost bound to be active in research they should take particular care with manuscripts involving their own work for example standing aside from the editorial process and delegating editorial decisions to other members of the editorial staff At the beginning of the 1990s there were few publications about telemedicine in the peer reviewed literature The subsequent years have seen a rapid growth in numbers of articles and the emergence of two specialist journals These are all healthy signs However there have been remarkably few studies of telemedicine s cost effectiveness which must represent a sign of its immaturity On balance the evidence seems to indicate that telemedicine research is in a healthy state