WebRTC to enable Telehealth through your browser

Kate McDonald | PULSE+IT | September 19, 2013

The browser-based real time communications standard known as WebRTC is gaining a lot of interest around the world, backed as it is by heavyweights like Google and Mozilla. Its full maturity is also being eagerly awaited in the field of telehealth, as it promises to help develop new applications that will allow users to conduct video consults and exchange data and images from within any browser.

...Giving it even more weight is its enthusiastic backing by Google, which bought the rights to many of the components used in RTC in 2011 and made them open source. In November 2012, Google launched WebRTC on its Chrome browser and it has since been implemented in Firefox and Opera, and with a very streamlined plug-in for Internet Explorer.

...What this all means for telehealth and telemedicine is not yet clear, but many in the industry believe it will enable more people to be able to access telehealth, but also to enable telehealth to be done better.

...In a clinical consultation, for instance, a doctor could securely deliver an ePrescription to a patient at the other end in real time, or one doctor can drag and drop an x-ray or report, allowing another doctor to receive the file securely and immediately.