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In France, all incarcerated prisoners are required to undergo a dental examination (Ministère de la santé et de la protection sociale, 2004 and Ministère de la justice, 2004). However, only one in two prisoners benefits from this oral health check-up. Oral teleconsultation could improve the quality of oral care in prisons. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The focus of this study was therefore to apply oral teleconsultation as an experiment. Using an oral teleconsultation system, a dentist and a nurse were separately asked to give patients a score, according to how urgently their dental issue needed to be treated. This score will henceforth be referred to as the “dental emergency scores given”.

The separate dental emergency scores given by the dentist and the nurse were compared and the results demonstrate the following: – 36.7 per cent (11) of the two scores were equal – 53.3 per cent (16) of the two scores differed by 1 point – 10 per cent (3) of the two scores differed by 2 points. The average score of the nurse was 2.23 and that of the dentist was 2.13. The small disparity should not obscure the fact that 63 per cent of the diagnoses turned out to be incorrect.

Dental care could easily be improved with oral teleconsultation as a care plan could be developed for each patient.

The condition of one’s dental health is, of course, very important for general health, but it also affects social aspects. Good oral hygiene and health are very important when looking for a job after having been released from prison.

This is the first study on oral teleconsultation in prisons. Dental care is rarely studied on prisoners. Telemedicine in dentistry is just beginning all over the world. This study is the first step of an extensive project in the University Hospital of Montpellier and the Villeneuve-les-Maguelone prison.

This study aims to explore how knowledge management (KM) influences the intellectual capital (IC) of organizations operating in health care and how IC and knowledge-sharing (KS) can contribute to the achievement of sustainable development in health systems. Notably, this study focuses on telemedicine, investigating how relational capital contributes to KS in the context of remote care services.

To comply with the paper’s aim, the authors use a qualitative research method based on a polar case study suitable for IC in health-care studies. More precisely, this study analyzes a nonprofit organization that, for over 15 years, has offered a free multispecialist teleconsultation service to answer medical questions from the most disadvantaged places in the world.

The findings show that the KM significantly contributes to the IC of organizations. Indeed, it improves the data management and transmission system, it increases performance flexibility in times of resource scarcity without compromising business objectives and it can attract new human resources even when not motivated by selfish goals (volunteer physicians).

This research contributes to studies on IC in health care by focusing on the contribution of telemedicine to the creation of IC. In particular, this work emphasizes the ability of telemedicine to develop and share knowledge in disadvantaged areas of the world. Moreover, in the current context, still strongly permeated by the health emergency generated by the pandemic and recently by the war in Eastern Europe, the importance of such assistance and diagnosis grows.

The conclusions the research findings lead may guide policymakers toward a policy supporting telemedicine. It would alleviate general health-care costs and completely revolutionize light health care’s role. Moreover, reducing socioeconomic distances, improving access to care and applying innovative technologies for sharing outcomes foster balanced socioeconomic development and knowledge dissemination.

This research has shown how telemedicine represents a new successful business model even in times of crisis. The organizational model makes it possible to offer cutting-edge specialized care, contain costs, easily reach disadvantaged areas of the planet, strengthen the skills and autonomy of the most backward countries through a process of KS and push the structures operating there to interact with those in advanced countries.

Humanized digital solutions that provide better access, understanding and use of health services enable better decisions and better patient’s experience focused on humanization of care. This translates into better health literacy in the digital area.

Currently health care is inseparable from digital health, and this evidence was highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this analysis, a cross-sectional study was carried out, with 335 valid answers in a quantitative and qualitative research to evaluate the opinion of the respondents regarding their digital health use and the means used, as well as the perception of emotions generated before and during the pandemic. A qualitative content analysis was also performed on the open question about the future of health.

The results showed a humanization in digital is essential and that it is necessary to prioritize the human relationship and find the meaning of space, communication and proximity of health face-to-face, respecting as differences.

This chapter will also propose the presentation of challenges and results from the application of health literacy on patient empowerment in the health system, based on humanized digital solutions.

This study aimed to find factors influencing the acceptance of telemedicine for adults in Brazil. Moreover, it investigates the moderating role of disease complexity and the generational digital divide phenomenon on the intention to use the telemedicine service.

A quasi-experiment was employed. Primary data were collected using a survey research method considering two different scenarios based on disease complexity and symptom severity. A total of 248 responses were collected using a structured questionnaire. The authors also tested these two scenarios in three generations (X, Y and Z) of adults. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the collected data and test the research hypotheses.

The results indicated that performance expectancy and perceived security and reliability are two predictors of the behavioral intention to use telemedicine, whereas effort expectancy and social influence showed no statistical significance. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that adults tend to adopt telemedicine regardless of the level of disease complexity. Finally, this study does not support the existence of a digital divide in the three generations.

The study applies the UTAUT model to assess the telemedicine acceptance for younger generations. It examines patient risk perception (security and reliability) as one antecedent of telemedicine acceptance.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze a teleconsultation modality based on a simple telephone call, using either landline or mobile phone, made available to more than two million people. Telecommunication systems are an increasingly common feature in modern healthcare. However, making teleconsultations available to the entire population covered by a public health system is a challenging goal.

This retrospective longitudinal observational study analyzed how this modality was used at the primary care level in Galicia, a region in the Northwest of Spain, in 2014 and 2015, focusing on demand, gender and age preferences, rural vs urban population and efficiency.

Of 28,472,852 consultations requested in this period, 9.0 percent were telephone consultations. Women requested more telephone consultations (9.9 percent of total consultations) than men (7.7 percent of total consultations). The highest demand occurred for the over 85 age group for both men and women. In both years, 2014 and 2015, the number of telephone consultations per inhabitant was higher in urban (0.53 and 0.69) than in rural areas (0.34 and 0.47). In 10.9 percent of cases, the telephone consultations required further face-to-face consultation.

Conventional voice telephone calls can efficiently replace conventional face-to-face consultations in primary healthcare in roughly 10 percent of cases. Women are more likely than men to use primary care services in both face-to-face and telephone consultation modalities. Public healthcare systems should consider implementing telephone consultations to deliver their services.

Proponents of telemedicine believe this technology will resolve many of the problems associated with the lack of access to specialty care by isolated populations. However, in order for telemedicine to be successful, health care professionals and patients must be willing to use it. Few studies exist that identify those characteristics that differentiate adopters from non-adopters of this technology. Furthermore, little is known about the kinds of health care professionals and patients who are willing to make continued use of telemedicine after initial adoption. Prior studies of the adoption of medical technology have identified personal characteristics such as age and gender among patients and age, gender, years since graduation from medical school, and medical specialty among providers as predictors of the adoption of medical technolgy. Using data collected from the first 483 teleconsultations performed by a West Texas medical system, we developed prediction models of the continued use of telemedicine using the personal characteristics of patients, primary care professionals, and medical specialists as predictors. We included the number of primary care professionals and specialists involved in prior teleconsultations in these prediction models. Patient characteristics contributed little to the prediction of continued use of telemedicine; however, characteristics of the health care professionals such as age, gender, and years since graduation as well as the number of health care personnel involved in previous consultations were significant predictors of the continued use of telemedicine.

The purpose of this paper is to observe and analyse the effects of the use of telemedicine in care homes on the use of acute hospital resources.

The study was an uncontrolled retrospective observational review of data on emergency hospital admissions and Emergency Department (ED) visits for care home residents in Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven. Acute hospital activity for residents was observed before and after the installation of telemedicine in 27 care homes. Data from a further 21 care homes that did not use telemedicine were used as a control group, using the median date of telemedicine installation for the “before and after” period. Patient outcomes were not considered.

Care homes with telemedicine showed a 39 per cent reduction in the costs of emergency admissions and a 45 per cent reduction in ED attendances after telemedicine installation. In the control group reductions were 31 and 31 per cent, respectively. The incremental difference in costs between the two groups of care homes was almost £1.2 million. The cost of telemedicine to care commissioners was £177,000, giving a return on investment over a 20-month period of £6.74 per £1 spent.

The results should be interpreted carefully. There is inherent bias as telemedicine was deployed in care homes with the highest use of acute hospital resources and there were some methodological limitations due to poor data. Nevertheless, controlling the data as much as possible and adopting a cautious approach to interpretation, it can be concluded that the use of telemedicine in these care homes was cost-effective.

There are very few telemedicine studies focused on care homes.

Purpose – Use of telemedicine is increasingly prevalent in order to provide better access to expert care, and we examine telemedicine use internationally.

Design/methodology – Using Donabedian's structure, process outcome framework, we conduct an analysis of published studies in the United States, Europe, and Asia to examine the uses, conditions treated, barriers, and future of telemedicine.

Findings – We identify several similarities and challenges to telemedicine use in each region. We find use of videoconferencing between providers or providers and patients for the treatment of acute and chronic conditions. Studies in the United States are more likely to identify applications for the use of chronic conditions, whereas studies in Europe or Asia are more likely to use them for acute access to expertise. Each region reported comparable challenges in reimbursement, liability, technology, and provider licensing.

Research limitations – We compare available research articles from three diverse regions, and many of the articles were merely descriptive in nature. Furthermore, the number of articles per region varied.

Practical implications – Barriers to telemedicine use include a lack of reimbursement, language commonality, technological availability, physician licensure or credentialing, trained support staff and patient privacy, and security assurances. Practitioners and policy makers should work to address these barriers.

Originality/value – Through this work, a summary of the research to date describes telemedicine use in the United States, Asia, and Europe. Identification of use and barriers may provide impetus for improving access to care by finding ways to increase telemedicine use through standardization.