Collaborative efforts are needed to ensure proper knowledge dissemination of telemedicine projects

Telemedicine is often seen as the solution to the challenge of providing health care for an increasing number of people with chronic conditions. Projects are often organised locally and based on the involvement of stakeholders with a wide range of backgrounds. It can be challenging to ensure that projects are based on previous experience and that they do not repeat previous studies. To better understand these challenges and current practice, we examined telemedicine projects funded in the 2008-2010 period to explore where, how and to what extent results from the projects were documented and disseminated.

Public and private funds were contacted for information about telemedicine studies focusing on people residing in their homes. After an initial screening of titles and abstracts, 19 projects were identified. The managers of the projects were contacted and information about project results and dissemination were obtained.

More than half of all projects were disseminated to professionals as well as to the public and used two-way communication. However, it was generally difficult to obtain an overview of the projects due to dynamic changes in names and scopes.

We propose that the funding authorities require designs comprising proper evaluation models that will subsequently allow the investigators to publish their findings. Furthermore, a dissemination plan comprising both peers and other professions should be made mandatory. The investigators should ensure proper documentation and dissemination of changes both during and after the projects in order to ensure transparency, and national or international organisations should establish a database with relevant data fields.

not relevant.

not relevant.