Telemedicine and Children with Special Healthcare Needs

Although many people in industrialized countries live in rural communities, they are faced with significant inequities in access to healthcare compared with those living in urban and suburban communities.¹ For example, in the US, 20% of the population live in designated rural communities, yet only 9% of physicians work in these areas. These disparities are part of the reason that mortality for children and adults in the US is higher in rural communities than in suburban and urban communities. Furthermore, patient-specific measures of quality of care and health outcomes are worse in rural hospitals, with rural patients receiving poorer healthcare and having poorer outcomes for a variety of medical and surgical services.^2-7.