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Providing high-quality cost-effective healthcare to patients in `remote' locations is an important requirement for today's health service. In an area such as Scotland, a significant proportion of the population live in rural areas, in many cases at a considerable distance from the nearest major hospital. Local health centres or general practice hospitals can provide effective care for many medical problems. However, patients may require urgent or specialist treatment that cannot be provided locally. Telemedicine can help solve this problem by providing local medical practitioners the means to consult with specialists based in the major hospitals via communications technology. This article introduces the concept of telemedicine and describes the components which make up a telemedicine system. It describes the SAVIOUR telemedicine project which involves the establishment of a telemedicine link between two hospitals in the North East of Scotland, discusses the technical and clinical issues highlighted by this project and examines some of the areas which must be addressed if telemedicine is to become an integrated part of the healthcare system.