Telehealth in Malaysia — An overview

Telehealth is a term used widely nowadays in conjunction with better ICT growth in the healthcare delivery. It integrates the used of telecommunication and information systems as well as multimedia technologies to promote healthcare delivery and create health plan for the individual. The Malaysia´s Telemedicine Blueprint 1997 was an initiative by the Malaysian government to employ the use of telehealth in the country healthcare system. There are 4 main components in the blueprint which later restructured into 7 components in 2000. However, experienced gained during the years of implementation shows that integration of the system is important to ensure the survival of the project with latest technologies. The integration with Integrated Health Enterprise (IHE) in 2007 once again reorganized the telehealth structure in 5 major components namely Lifetime Health Record (LHR) & Services, Lifetime Health Plan (LHP), Health Online, Teleconsultation (TC) and Continuing Professional Development (CPD).