Transforming telemedicine for rural and urban communities Telemedicine 2.0 - any doctor, any place, any time

Providing quality healthcare in both rural and urban settings introduces many challenges. While today´s Telemedicine attempts to address these challenges, the current approach is limited. This paper defines a new system architecture that leverages the network as the platform for intelligent transport and services to support high-definition videoconferencing and high-quality video and audio telemetry without the usual prohibitive cost. We describe the intelligent system components used at the end points and in the data center, and the requirements for a robust network both in the enterprise and in the service provider arenas. We contrast today´s Telemedicine workflow with the workflow of Telemedicine 2.0. Finally, we offer a view of possible extensions Telemedicine 2.0 to further capitalize on the infrastructure and architecture proposed in this paper.