Identifying and analyzing the barriers of telemedicine implementation in Iran

Telemedicine is defined as using telecommunication and information technology for sharing information and medical care from distant places in medical scopes. However، it seems that this technology does not have a strong position in Iran yet. Therefore، the main goal of this research is to identify and analyze barriers to implementation. This research which is an applied research is in the category of descriptive researches. The population of this research is all doctors throughout Iran which is about 100،000 doctors. The research has been done in the end of 2013and the beginning of 2014 in Iranian date. The sample has been chosen judgmental and the sample size has been estimated about 384. A Likert scale questionnaire asking for the views of doctors teaching in medical sciences universities and those who work in hospitals throughout Iran was the main research instrument in the study. Validity and reliability of this research has been confirmed by the idea of experts and Chronbach’s alpha respectively (alpha=0. 86). Findings of this study showed that all of the indices were key barriers to implementing telemedicine in Iran because their loading factor was more than 0. 3. The categories have also been confirmed by the second order factor analysis. As long as these barriers exist، telemedicine can’t be implemented effectively، so future studies should be focused on finding solutions for these barriers.