What we call telemedicine nowadays actually started in the 1950s, when a few hospitals and university medical facilities started to look for methods and techniques that would allow them to share images and information via telephone. In one of the first instances of the successful usage of telemedicine, two healthcare facilities in Pennsylvania, U.S. transferred radiological images over the telephone. In the initial days, telemedicine was majorly used for connecting doctors working in one location to specialists somewhere far away.
This method was hugely beneficial to patients or populations in rural areas, where specialists were not easily available. As the systems and equipment used for connecting healthcare practitioners across different regions became more expensive and complex over the next few years, especially with the development of technologically advanced devices, the use of the approach started becoming limited. However, the advent of the internet and the subsequent emergence of video transmission and smart devices completely transformed the practice of telemedicine and made this technique affordable and convenient.