[Latest proceedings: remote medicine - ready for clinical practice?!]

Changes in the demographic structure, increasing multimorbidity in connection with a rise in the number of chronic illnesses and the absence of an effective coordination of the different levels of healthcare services with its discontinuous processes and redundancies will increase the economic burdens in the German health-care system. Recent developments and appropriate logistic premises nowadays offer a realistic basis for implementing remote medicine as a central service and information tool as well as an instrument controlling the information and data flow between patient, hospital and medical practitioner. This article highlights current and future strategies including diagnostic and therapeutic options. The focus will concentrate on patients with heart rhythm disturbances, advanced congestive heart failure, and patients with implantable devices, i.e., pacemaker and implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD).