Author: Debbie Passey, Digital Health Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne

In 1874, a surgeon in South Australia telegraphed wound care instructions for a patient 2,000 kilometres away. A few years later, in 1879, a letter in The Lancet medical journal suggested physicians use the telephone to cut down on unnecessary patient visits. As the telephone and telegraph spread, the idea of telemedicine – literally “healing at a distance” – inspired science fiction writers to conjure up new ways of treating patients across great distances. Real-world technology has developed in tandem with scifi speculation ever since. Today, certain kinds of telemedicine have become commonplace, while other futuristic tools are in the…