Grid Technology

Abstract

The present chapter is about telemedicine, but not about software and hardware. It is about humanware. Telemedicine’s greatest problem is not to make the technology work. It is organizations and humans in organizations who will decide the future of telemedicine. Telemedicine is not just a simple success story and the diffusion of telemedicine has been slower than many expected. For the future of telemedicine, a shift in the way we think may be necessary. Few authors have focused on learning in telemedicine (with what is here considered as associated aspects: team organization; learning organizations; network organization). The learning potential connected to telemedicine is significant. Learning may constitute an important argument for telemedicine. In the present chapter, focus is on the role learning and collaboration may have for the future of telemedicine. To take the full advantage of the learning potential a higher volume of telemedicine is necessary, but this requires more organizational collaboration. Improved collaboration is obtainable by implementing collaboration measures. The chapter shows that focus on learning and collaboration may well be important for the future of telemedicine. It is recommended that managers lead change processes in their organizations, where the different aspects of importance for realization of learning benefits of telemedicine are treated. For telemedicine, it is important that future research includes: investigations on how to obtain learning benefits and which collaboration measures are relevant for the different telemedicine applications. Objectives of the present chapter are to propose: 1) more international research on learning in telemedicine (with mentioned associated aspects) and telemedicine collaboration problems and 2) to show the background for this proposal.