Email experiences in Telemedicine - It is not all about Cost, but also about the Quality of Service

Location: Urban teaching Hospital in Western India and a Rural Primary Care-center
Subject: 182 newborn babies
Email traffic: 309 messages sent from the Rural Primary Care-center and 272 messages from the Urban teaching Hospital at an average response/reply time of 11.3 hrs.
Outcome:
38 babies were referred to the intensive care unit at the Urban teaching Hospital after these consultations and the remaining 144 babies were managed at the Rural Primary Care-center.
Telemedicine (via email) helped in the diagnosis, referral, treatment and follow-up of patients.
Cost to benefit ratio of 1:45
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12217120