우리나라의 원격진료에 관한 문헌 분석 : 탐색적 연구

Telemedicine has advantages and controversies at the same time, which arise from the peculiarities of Korea medical system. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the nature of telemedicine, effectiveness and management methods. Telemedicine research has been conducted since 1995. In this study, a total of 65 research papers related to telemedicine published in Korean journals over the past 25 years (1995 ~ 2019) were investigated. In this study, the search keywords such as “telemedicine” and “telehealth” were used in this study in consideration of various terms referring to telemedicine. A total of 65 research papers were reviewed by period, starting in 1995 and increasing in the early 2000s, and the largest number of studies on telemedicine from 2014 to 2016. The papers were classified into 1) telemedicine awareness and intention of consumers, 2) customer satisfaction, 3) telemedicine effectiveness analysis, and 4) legal considerations. The papers included in this study have a fundamental limitation that there is no practical analysis on the telemedicine in Korea. In order to overcome these limitations, the papers attempted to overcome the limitations of the study by conducting an overseas case study, the analyzing effectiveness of domestic demonstration cases, and simulation. Many countries allow telemedicine to expand the scope of private health care institutions, increase access to medical care and strengthen medical capacity, while at the same time benefiting from the management of chronic diseases and the reduction of national health care costs. In Korea, as mentioned in particular, the introduction of telemedicine is inevitable due to the structure of the disease becoming chronic. Korea, one of the fastest aging countries in the world, needs to manage chronic diseases and geriatric diseases at the same time, improve the accessibility of medical vulnerable groups and solve medical vulnerable areas. Problems to be solved such as the quality of medical care, the possibility of misdiagnosis, and the leakage of personal medical information will continue to arise, but consequently, efforts to sustain medical system and solve blind spots in our society should continue.