Imagine being ill or in physical pain and knowing that there's a remedy out there some where - but you have no access to it - that's where we the TELMEDPAK team come in.

In the past few years the alphabet “e” has been attached to almost everything – e-mail, e-learning, e-commerce, e-banking, e-retail and e-services to name a few. Yet the concept of ‘e-health' is still a new and emerging one. Gunther Eysenbach the ‘virtual doctor' describes e-health as an “emerging field in the intersection of medical informatics, public health and business, referring to health services and information delivered or enhanced through the Internet and related technologies.” This article dives into just one aspect of the e-health pool – Telemedicine.

Telemedicine works in two ways. The first method is regarded as Store and Forward Telemedicine whereby the patient's medical information is collected locally (stored) and then transferred to a qualified doctor (forward) in any part of the world; a response can usually take about 24 to 48 hours. The other technique is known as Real Time Telemedicine where the patient's data is available to the specialist as soon as the local doctor receives the information; this method uses video conferencing technology and live data transmission.

The concept of Telemedicine is highly essential in developing countries like Pakistan that lack basic health care infrastructure. Pakistan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, yet the number of doctors are inadequate when compared to the number of patients. The doctor to population ratio is 1: 1,436 in the country compared to the 1: 500 in wealthy countries. In the case of a specialist, the figures in Pakistan are even worse, 1:12,800. Keeping in mind the health scenario in Pakistan, one can clearly see the importance of Telemedicine in providing specialized health services to the people of remote areas who have long been neglected, especially, the women and children who often sacrifice their health care.