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Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 1998;279:1857.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Proponents of telehealth—using technology to support long-distance health care services and education—say the practice holds the promise of improving delivery of medical care to medically underserved or isolated Americans. To that end, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) announced the establishment of a new Office for the Advancement of Telehealth to encourage development of telehealth programs.

"This new office allows HRSA to facilitate and capture opportunities presented by emerging technology," said HRSA administrator Claude Earl Fox, MD, MPH. "We intend to build on and advance the use of telecommunications to increase and improve technical assistance to our grantees, to train health care providers, to encourage linkages for knowledge exchange, and to capitalize on and replicate lessons learned in providing quality health care to underserved individuals, families, and communities."

The new office's responsibilities will include telehealth policy and program development, telemedicine demonstrations in medically underserved and remote . . . [Full Text of this Article]