I work for a small mental health company in Utah that serves 3 counties. When we setup our telemedicine system we significantly reduced our costs. We no longer have to pay as much for travel and hotels for our doctors, they just see clients over telemed no matter which county they are in. Their workload hasn't increased much but now they spend less time traveling and more time with clients. Our clients aren't weirded out by fact they are talking to a tv and camera because the cameras are very high quality and that allows both sides to pick up on facial queues which goes along way for trust and understanding. Most clients say they are extremely happy that they can see their doctor and get the help they need.
The system was paid for, and is maintained, communication lines and all, with federal grants. I am amazed at how much we save just on the T1 lines alone which comes close to 100K a year.
This is something that the government got right, finally.
I was surprised not to see a "In Soviet Russia..." joke, then again this article is pretty fresh.
If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro