# Telemedicine: A Survey of Telecommunication Technologies, Developments, and Challenges
## 3 Overview of Telemedicine  
Telemedicine is a means of transmitting biomedical data between patient and caregiver at different locations without face-to-face contact. It saves cost and time in health care services by providing remote medication that eliminate the need to travel to see a medical expert [42]. In [18], the authors defined telemedicine as the delivery of health care and the sharing of medical knowledge over distance using telecommunication. Telemedicine provides expert-based medical care to any place where health care is needed without physical contact. It uses existing wired and wireless infrastructures for both prototype and real-time designs [33]. The use of telemedicine over wired communication technologies ha been implemented using plain old telephone systems (POTS) and integrated services digital networks (ISDN). In contemporary telemedicine, several wireless communication technologies have been deployed for various systems and designs [43]. These include ZigBee, Bluetooth, VSAT, WLAN, WiMAX, GPRS, and UMTS (3G and 4G). Telemedicine is a developing technology that could be implemented by combining telecommunication and information technologies towards the improvement of the medical profession. It is a new way of delivering health care facilities to patients, even those in extremely isolated areas [33]. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline
**Ref** & **Year** & **Main Focus** & **Specific Details** \\ \hline
[34] & 2013 & Wireless devices and Vital signs in telemedicine & * & Commercial wireless medical devices and systems. * & Integration of vital signs sensors \\  & & & * & Features of e-health applications * & QoS for the application of specific healthcare \\
[36] & 2014 & QoS and architecture in healthcare & * & Architectures for telemedicine \\  & & & * & Wireless Technologies in Telemedicine. \\
[38] & 2017 & Wireless techniques in telemedicine & * & Vertical Handoff (VHO) Techniques used in Telemedicine Vertical Handoff (VHO) Techniques used in Telemedicine \\
[37] & 2018 & QoS and QoE in ehealth & * & QoS and QoE in telemedicine systems. \\
[21] & 2018 & RFID in Healthcare & * & Applications of RFID in healthcare \\
[39] & 2020 & Telemedicine sensors & * & Cheslinge of RFID in healthcare \\
[20] & 2020 & ICT in telecommunication & * & Security and privacy concerns \\
[19] & 2021 & IoT-based telemedicine architecture & * & mHealth sensors for COVID-19 diagnostics \\  & & & * & Wireless technologies applied in telemedicine \\
[40] & 2022 & Telemedicine telecommunication networks & * & Evolution of mobile network for telemedicine. \\  & & & * & IoT-based telemedicine network. \\
[8] & 2022 & Telemedicine in pain medicine & * & Telemedicine classification taxonomy. \\  & & & * & Healthcare services and applications. \\  & & & * & Role of telecommunication networks in \\
[13] & 2022 & Telemedicine application in Latin & * & 5G-based telemedicine framework \\  & & & * & Big data and AI in telemedicine \\
[41] & 2022 & & * & Applications of 5G in telemedicine \\  & & & * & Challenges to 5G usage for telemedicine. \\  & & & * & Evaluation of level of application of telemedicine \\
[8] & 2022 & Telemedicine in pain medicine & * & Evaluation of level of application of telemedicine \\  & & & * & in pain medicine during the COVID-19 pandemic. \\
[13] & 2022 & Telemedicine application in Latin & * & Application of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic. \\  & & & * & Pros and cons for use of telemedicine in Latin \\
[41] & 2022 & Tele dentistry during the COVID-19 pandemic & * & Tele dentistry services and development \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: \(Cont.\)In [16], telemedicine was viewed as the transmission of essential clinical information by means of modern ICT to deliver healthcare services to patients located at considerable distances, and was grouped into live telemedicine and store-and-forward telemedicine.