ABSTRACT
Standards and Guidelines In this chapter we highlight telehealth-related associations and the guidelines that they have developed for telehealth systems.
The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) was established in 1993 as a nonprot organization to bring together groups from such areas as medicine, academia, technology, telecommunications, and government to overcome barriers to the advancement of telemedicine (see www.americantelemed.org). The association works to achieve this goal through a variety of mission-related activities. One of its main activities is to create the basis for assuring uniform quality in the delivery of remote health care services, particularly via the Standards and Guidelines Committee efforts. There are also a number of professional societies associated with the numerous clinical specialties that use telemedicine that have created and endorsed standards, guidelines, and clinical practice recommendations.
