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IJED Articles 
Socio-Economical Impact of Telemedicine in Russian Federation
ELENA V. KHASANSHINA and MAX E. STACHURA
IJED, Vol. 8 No. 3,
(2006)
Telemedicine is the use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve patients' health status general and specific for health education, health care, diagnosis, monitoring, management, and research. During the last ten years, telemedicine in Russian Federation (RF) has become more common, despite the fact that all publications are developmental reports without studies of outcomes evaluation and effectiveness. Information on social-economic impact is lacking. Although telemedicine in Russia can be expected to have social and economic implications for communities, healthcare providers, patients and others, most available publications to this date focused on its feasibility, estimation of cost saving, and some reference to social benefits. Russian and English language literature searches were used to encompass telemedicine evidence in terms of the social aspects, and economic performance for populations and individuals. The main benefits we looked for are access to healthcare services, cost resources, cost-effectiveness, education, social isolation, health outcomes, quality of care, and quality of life. For better understanding of telemedicine’s place in society, we also present an overview of both the Russian healthcare system and telemedicine.
