Navy telemedicine: a review of current and emerging research models

With extended deployments of military telemedicine to remote, austere, and high-risk settings, there is a danger that implementation will outrun the research designed to assess it. A review of existing research evaluates current assessment models and indicates gaps around which future research may be designed. A review of models for evaluating telemedicine was conducted in September, 2001. Seven areas of assessment recurred that could be subsumed under the framework of "interoperability." A follow-up search was conducted during September, 2003, to ascertain the degree to which assessments of interoperability were being advocated. Although extensive deployments of telemedicine systems in high-risk settings make it imperative to know that human, organizational, and technical components are integrating productively (i.e., interoperating), current research does not evaluate telemedicine as a system. The structure and functioning of telemedicine systems should be assessed empirically and systemically to avoid subjective or limited assessments.