ABSTRACT
Telemedicine is the process of providing medical expertise remotely with the help of telecommunication. It is particularly valuable in remote areas, and is therefore useful in Nepal, where the few specialists are separated from most of the population. HealthNet Nepal is a non-governmental organization that provides affordable Internet services to the Nepalese health community, access to health information and technical support for various regional information-sharing initiatives. It has developed its own software, called Hnet telemedicine. The local system collects a clinical history and images, which are then transmitted to a specialist for diagnosis. Once images have been stored in the computer, they need to be cropped to reduce the file size and annotation has to be provided for better description of the clinical problem. A technical manual was developed as a basic guide for non-medical professionals and general practitioners on how to take clinical photographs in radiology, pathology and dermatology using a digital camera.
