Welcome message from the Director

Telemedicine is defined as the use of  technology to provide medical care when distance separates the doctor and patient.

Since 2001, UC Irvine has provided more than 8,400 telemedicine consultations by way of 2,100 clinics to patients who do not have access to specialty care in their immediate locality.

Telemedicine, with its capacity for state-of-the-art home-monitoring, has emerged as a priority for UC Irvine’s School of Medicine. The new Medical Education facility on the UC Irvine campus has embraced the teaching of telemedicine to the next generations of physicians and nurses.

Funded by numerous grants from state and national agencies, UC Irvine's telemedicine program is part of the California Telehealth Network, 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

But the application of telemedicine at UC Irvine goes beyond what is conventionally available.  Through collaboration with the medical school’s information technology infrastructure and California Institute of Technology and Telecommunication (Calit2), new approaches to telemedicine are being developed. UC Irvine’s program is focused on developing a unified telemedicine platform which allows users to communicate in a simple and inexpensive manner.

Applications under development include:

• Use of a cell phone platform to diagnosis concussion in high school athletes who have been sidelined with a head injury;
• Monitoring medication adherence at home to prevent unnecessary hospitalization for seniors;
• Allowing UC Irvine specialists access to patients in remote emergency settings.

It takes a great university to sustain and expand modern-day Telemedicine and Telehealth. UC Irvine is well-positioned to assume a leadership role through the diversity of its resources in medicine, law, economics and social science. The future is bright.

Ira T. Lott, MD
Director, Telemedicine Program for the UC Irvine Health Sciences
Professor, UC Irvine School of Medicine