Evaluating applications of a telemedicine taxonomy on the classification of research

By offering increased access to medical care, telemedicine offers significant opportunity for the process of development under Amartya Sen’s definition, that development is freedom, including freedom from illness, early death, and preventable disease. It advances development by freeing people from these burdens. However, like many emerging technologies, organizing information and understanding the field faces significant challenges. This paper applies Bashshur's three-dimensional model of telemedicine to the classification of telemedicine literature found in databases to assess the value of the model as a tool for classification. By standardizing language and creating a repository of research done to date in a centralized location, the field can better understand how it is progressing and where work still needs to be done. This paper aims to see if Bashshur's model serves well for this task.