Telemedicine Applications in Turkey as a NATO Member and as a Balkan Country

Abstract

Turkey is a secular, democratic and constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. It is an important player regionally and globally, a member of the NATO, OECD, a candidate for European Union accession, and chair of the 2015 G20. As of May 2016, Turkey's Ministry of Health has about 900 hospitals and more than 7,000 health centers, about twice as many as a decade ago. Today there is a limited amount of telemedicine in Turkey but those numbers are expected to increase. Telemedicine is on the duty-supervised urgent e-change action plan of Turkey. Tele-radiology and tele-pathology are a current focus of the ministry of health as there are inadequate numbers of medical imaging specialists. Unlike these two areas, tele dentistry is newly developing in Turkey. Out of all of them government decided to prepare a project of 15 city hospitals or digital hospital in 15 Metropolitans in Turkey in 2013. Digital hospital will be a hospital model in which information systems work integrated, all kinds of medical device can send data to the information management's system through networks and sensors, the information in the system can be accessed from hospital and distantly in the limits of personnel's' and patience's authorization and approval. It is know that telemedicine can save time, money and reduce costs for the medical practices in the world.