The Feasibility of Telemedicine Technology Implementation in the Selected Hospitals of Iran

Successful implementation and optimum use of telemedicine technology depends on providing the necessary infrastructure and the success factors of this technology, such as high-speed broadband. The present study is aimed at feasibility study on the implementation of telemedicine in selected hospitals of Iran.
This descriptive-analytic study was conducted in selected hospitals in 2016. The data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire that its content validity and structure were measured by four professors of health information management. Reliability of the questionnaire was determined using internal correlation test (Cronbach's alpha=0.83). The results were analyzed using descriptive statistics (average and standard deviation) and inferential statistics.
According to the findings, 82.2% of the hospitals had no access to high-speed broadband and only 5.5% had optics fiber. Insurance and repayment obstacles and shortages of technical staff were identified as the main barriers and medical personnel's resistance and licensing issues were identified as the low importance barriers to the implementation of this technology. Organizational and cultural factors (p-value=0.001), technical infrastructure (p-value=0.005) and financial requirements (p-value=0.021) of telemedicine technology had a significant difference of 5% error rate with education level and orientation.
Due to barriers such as lack of video conferencing tools, the lack of high-speed broadband, and inadequate funding for the purchase and implementation of the necessary equipment, the studied hospitals currently were not able to provide telemedicine services.