An Assessment of Infrastructures of Telemedicine at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

Introduction: Telemedicine is defined as the ability to provide interactive health care by modern technologies and telecommunications which require related infrastructure and technologies. The aim of this study was to assess infrastructures of telemedicine at health centers, hospitals and clinics affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Method: This is a cross-sectional study conducted in 2015 on  health care facilities equipped with telemedicine. These facilities consisted of 15 health centers, three hospitals and two clinics which were studied through census sampling method. Data were collected using a  standard checklist and analyzed using descriptive statistics through SPSS version 21. Results: All the studied centers used laptop platform, of which 95% (19 Centers) had camera platform and 80% had monitors with full HD resolution. Of all the centers, 14.44% used clinical facilities and equipment and 85% (17 centers) had required facilities to hold video conferences. Totally, there was 21.31% of the required communicational protocol to establish telemedicine. The average internet network bandwidth of health centers was 644.68 MB/S. Conclusion: According to the current condition of technical infrastructure of telemedicine, it is suggested that authorities make  decisions and policies to develop and improve technical infrastructure for providing more advanced services in the field of telemedicine. Keywords: Telemedicine, Assessment, Technical infrastructure