We conducted a case study of medical video conferencing (MVC) for the delivery of patient healthcare (a form of telemedicine) using multiple data collection and analysis techniques involving a range of telemedicine stakeholders.
The research reveals that telemedicine requires a new kind of service relationship, an Advanced Encounter, with unique relationships between the telemedicine service providers, presenters, patients, and technology. Seven facilitating factors for the Advanced Encounter of telemedicine are identified and discussed, including the telemedicine servicescape: a set of supporting structures that are critical to telemedicine success.
Key contributions are a deep understanding of the relationships between telemedicine actors, and the organizational actions needed to deploy a technology-mediated telemedicine service.