Globally, health systems are under increasing pressure to deliver health services in a fair and cost-effective manner. Geography, workforce and the increasing prevalence of chronic disease are contributing factors. Telehealth – or the delivery of health services at a distance – has an important role to play.

With communication technologies becoming more readily accessible and affordable – we are now seeing an array of telehealth applications emerging with potential benefit for patients and clinicians – particularly where health services are traditionally limited or non-existent – or difficult to access. The Global Telehealth 2012 conference (GT2012) was convened with this in mind.

The theme for the meeting was “Delivering Quality Healthcare Anywhere Through Telehealth” and papers were solicited internationally to cover a broad spectrum from ‘work in progress’ laboratory studies to successfully established clinical services. This book contains selected contributions of papers deemed to have lasting value and which capture the international diversity and variations of scope of contemporary telehealth developments, in keeping with this theme.

GT2012 was the 2nd International Conference hosted by the Australasian Telehealth Society (ATHS), an organisation formed in 2008 to promote the growth of telehealth in all aspects, through Australian and New Zealand. The event would not have been possible without generous sponsorship by the Australian Government – Department of Health and Ageing, the University of Western Sydney and The University of Queensland; and the support of several companies and agencies involved with telehealth and eHealth. Endorsement of the event by numerous professional societies and promotion of it to their membership was also very much appreciated.

Reviewing of all papers submitted for publication was undertaken by an international panel of 35 independent expert reviewers, who are listed further on. Approximately 58% of those papers submitted for review were accepted. The editors wish to record their grateful acknowledgement of the efforts of the reviewers who conducted detailed appraisals of the papers and provided valuable feedback leading to the high standard of work appearing in this publication.

Anthony C. Smith

The University of Queensland, Centre for Online Health, Australia

Nigel R. Armfield

The University of Queensland, Centre for Online Health, Australia

Robert H. Eikelboom

The University of Western Australia, Ear Science Institute, Perth, Australia