Telemedicine: A Survey of Telecommunication Technologies, Developments, and Challenges

Abstract

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased research outputs in telemedicine over the last couple of years. One solution to the COVID-19 pandemic as revealed in literature is to leverage telemedicine for accessing health care remotely. In this survey paper, we review several articles on eHealth and Telemedicine with emphasis on the articles’ focus area, including wireless technologies and architectures in eHealth, communications protocols, Quality of Service, and Experience Standards, among other considerations. In addition, we provide an overview of telemedicine for new readers. This survey reviews several telecommunications technologies currently being proposed along with their standards and challenges. In general, an encompassing survey on the developments in telemedicine technology, standards, and protocols is presented while acquainting researchers with several open issues. Special mention of the state-of-the-art specialist application areas are presented. We conclude the survey paper by presenting important research challenges and potential future directions as they pertain to telemedicine technology.

Keywords

• COVID-19
• eHealth
• Internet of Things
• communication protocols
• telecommunications
• telemedicine