Managing a virtual hospital

The paper discusses the concept of the virtual hospital and telemedicine as a part of daily hospital operations. The concept of the virtual hospital is analyzed by using business, application and technology point of views. In addition to the hospital oriented operations the operational level activities, i.e. mobile hospital, independent living, care of wellness and treatment chain, form an essential part of it. A common feature of all of these operations is the central role of telecommunication to implement the operative systems. The virtual hospital may not only be seen as a collection of new technical tools at the hospital; above all there is a question on the adoption of new operations model to achieve effectivity and better quality from both the hospital and the patient point of view.