TY - JOUR AU - Shimizu, Shuji AU - Kudo, Kuriko AU - Tomimatsu, Shunta AU - Moriyama, Tomohiko AU - Moriyama, Taiki AU - Sadakari, Yoshihiko AU - Nakashima, Naoki AU - Akaraviputh, Thawatchai PY - 2018/10/31 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - International Telemedicine Activities in Thailand JF - Siriraj Medical Journal JA - Siriraj Med J VL - 70 IS - 5 SE - Review Article DO - UR - https://he02.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/sirirajmedj/article/view/152771 SP - 471-475 AB - <p>The development of information and communication technology has had a dramatic impact on people’s lives,<br>including medical matters. The Internet has made it possible for telemedicine to be implemented with excellent image<br>quality at low cost; such telemedicine was first applied between Japan and South Korea in 2002. The technology is<br>not restricted to advanced countries: it can also be applied in developing nations, and it has expanded rapidly to<br>other parts of Asia and beyond. In 2005 Thailand became the seventh country to be associated with the Telemedicine<br>Development Center of Asia (TEMDEC). As of 2017, TEMDEC operates 144 programs in Thailand, mainly in<br>endoscopy (55, 38%) and surgery (40, 28%): 17 hospitals or medical institutions are active members, and there are<br>165 telemedicine connections. Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University was the first participant; it has 71 telemedicine<br>connections; King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital became the second participant; it has 52 such connections.<br>These two hospitals account for 74.5% (123/165) of all telemedicine activities in Thailand. Compared with outside<br>Bangkok, the number of telemedicine connections is 14 times (154/11) greater and the number of such connections<br>per hospital is 10 times (15.4/1.6) greater in the capital-even though the number of hospitals is only 1.4 times (10/7)<br>greater in Bangkok. To efficiently meet local needs, we strongly hope that telemedicine will expand into rural parts<br>of Thailand and into more medical specialties through ongoing technological development.</p> ER -