About Us

Telemedicine -- the delivery of healthcare services or transmission of wellness information using telecommunications technology -- helps eliminate distance barriers and can improve access to medical services that would not be consistently available in distant communities. At UC Irvine Health and UC Irvine School of Medicine, our Telemedicine Program has been serving patients since 2001 and is part of an expanding effort to provide cost-effective, convenient patient care.

The program offers a new resource for patients who live in rural areas and must travel long distances to see a specialist for medical care. Instead, these patients, and physicians, benefit from telemedicine. 

UC Irvine Medical Center is a telehealth website provider of health-related information and services and participates in California’s Telehealth Network (CTN), which is in the process of connecting over 800 healthcare providers to an extensive network of recipients over a state-and nation-wide broadband network.  Through CTN or other high-speed technologies, remote health care clinics and hospitals are able to access UC Irvine physicians; our services are available to both patients and their physicians.

Live video-teleconferencing consultations create the ability to bridge the spatial divide between physicians and patients to enable greater access to specialty care.  These live interactive medical encounters are particularly vital in rural or medically underserved areas, but also of significant value wherever a patient is located.

Telehealth encounters also allow UC Irvine physicians to view patient information on a delayed basis, offering physicians and patients a convenient and effective health care tool.

Among the special programs here:

• Gerald A. Maguire, MD, DFAPA, Sr. Associate Dean of Medical Education, has been providing consultations to speech language pathologists and psychiatrists in international countries focusing on stuttering. 
• J Christian Fox, MD, FAIUM, professor of clinical emergency medicine, has been conducting lectures with hands-on scanning sessions with University of New England's School of Rural Medicine in Armidale, Australia for two years.  "It's a dual feed: I perform an ultrasound and my live feed is seen on their screen and they follow my lead by doing the same. I critique their technique along the way."