Telehealth is the union of health care with technologies that make it faster and more efficient. It is based on availability of services and health information by telecommunications technologies such as videoconferencing, teleconsulting for second opinion, continuing education, distance learning and others.

It is commonly used for:

- Transmission of medical images and audio online or offline for diagnosis and second opinion;

- Contact between specialized groups for clinical cases discussion, treatments and other medical information;

- Video-conferencing;

- Primary health care in difficult access areas;

- Continuing Medical Education;

- Data and patient information management, such as electronic medical records.

The application of telehealth uses communication methods to allow the contact between stakeholders and the complexity of such means depends on the need of the participants connected. Through these methods of contact, it is possible to use teleconsulting and reformulating the traditional practice of medicine. However, it is not Telehealth's goal to exterminate the doctor-patient relationship, but make it more efficient, searching for sources and opinions for the treatment to be better applied.

Telehealth market is quite promising. Nowadays, there are plenty of cores that integrate the use of technology to improve the attention given to patients. In Brazil, especially, is a vast field of action, since there is a huge social and economic disparity between regions. Telehealth can be very well used in this case, as it is capable of bringing medical resources to people who do not have local medical assistance.

Telehealth has many goals:

- Reduce time and cost of patient transportation from primary care units to specialized centers, reducing the pressure on hospitals;

- Improve researches' cooperation and integration with the possibility to share clinical records and information that can be discussed;

- Increase the number of distance education programs for physicians and residents, allowing them to be constantly updated in their fields;

- Developing technologies for audio, video and images in the health area;

- Build software for patient data storage that can be accessed anywhere in the world.

However, we should always keep in mind that the Telehealth objective isn´t replace health professionals, but to facilitate their work. The intention is to provide resources to increase the capacity and quality of patient care, as well as treatment.

There are some specialties of medicine that already use Telehealth's benefits, such as in Teleradiology, Teledermatology, Teleophthalmology, Telesurgery and Telepathology. These areas constantly work with images, what can be improved with the communication methods available.