TeleHealth Services history

In the 1960’s and 70’s, the Public Health Department, NASA, the Department of Defense and the United States Health and Human Services Department all invested time and money for research in telemedicine.

Several years went by, and then in 1963, Massachusetts General Hospital established a telecommunications link with a medical station at Boston’s Logan Airport to assist in urban emergency and urgent situations.

In 1964, the two locations established their first interactive, two-way video link, negating the 112 miles between them.

39 Although not normally discussed as telemedicine, the critical ability for first responders to send cardiac monitoring information to responding emergency physicians who were en route was accomplished in Miami in 1967 using voice radio channels.

In 1968, a seminal telemedicine project was established involving Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Logan Airport.

In 1969, ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency Network) was funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the United States Department of Defense.

In 1972, NASA's Applications Technology Satellite (ATS-1) began providing telecommunications access for health care between numerous smaller communities in Alaska and larger hospitals.

Martin Cooper, a Motorola engineer, reportedly made the first cell phone call on April 3, 1973.

More recently, in 1977, a formal telemedicine program established by the Memorial University of Newfoundland started with a three-month demonstration project involving one-way television and two-way audio.

However, one noteworthy project quickly developed following the massive Soviet Armenian earthquake that occurred December 7, 1988.

Seven years later, in 1990, the online ecosystem took on a more tangible form when Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web.

Starting with a pilot program in 1991 at Dodge County Hospital (which predated the legislation), the network grew to include an academic hub, “secondary” specialty services hubs, correctional sites, and ambulatory care sites.

Recognized for its pioneering program in the field of telehealth, Georgia enacted legislation in 1992 to establish a statewide network led by the Medical College of Georgia and the state's Department of Administrative Services.

1993: Founding of the American Telemedicine Association

In 1996, the National Library of Medicine funded a test project using telemedicine to address the high prevalence of otitis media.

The expansion of Medicare reimbursement began when Congress passed the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA), which mandated Medicare reimbursements for telehealth care and funding for telehealth demonstration projects.

60 In 2000, Sentara Healthcare in Virginia became the first to implement this approach.

63,64,65 The applicability of telehealth technology to neonatal intensive care is demonstrated by the Antenatal and Neonatal Guidelines Education and Learning System (ANGELS) program in Arkansas, developed in 2003.

In response, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a call for pilot programs in 2007 to install broadband to advance access to health services in rural areas.

In the wake of the Great Recession of 2008, the country was suffering from mass unemployment and slow economic growth.

The federal government tried to boost the domestic economy and replenish the country’s infrastructure with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

By 2010, California and 10 other states had enacted some form of health insurance coverage mandate for telemedicine.

That article noted that health care organizations are investing heavily in digital health, exemplified by the VHA and the 700,000 vets who were treated in 2015 using a technology-enabled modality of care.

2016: HRSA Receives Funding to Expand the Use of Telehealth in Rural Areas

In 2019, Medicare began to make payments for virtual check-ins—brief patient-initiated communications with providers, while Medicare Part B paid for e-visits through online patient portals.