The influence of telemedicine on capacity development in public primary hospitals in China: A scoping review

With the rapid development of telemedicine equipment and information communication technology, telemedicine has developed rapidly and is used widely around the world as a new mode of medical service. This new technology has been used widely in China and has benefited a large number of patients. Due to the hospital-centric structure in health sector, resources and patients became increasingly concentrated in hospitals instead of primary care. In this way, telemedicine is a crucial method for government to the inequality of medical resources between urban and rural areas. But little is known about the influence of telemedicine on public primary hospitals in China. The objective of this study is to review the influence of telemedicine on capacity development of respiratory department in public primary hospital in China. A scoping review was conducted using electronic databases including PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE and Google Scholar. Telemedicine has a major impact on the establishment of a complete national health system. The immediate sharing of medical information effectively alleviates the situation of serious information imbalance between doctors and patients. It also guides the public to make rational choice of medical behaviour. In public emergencies, telemedicine can quickly concentrate all kinds of high-quality medical resources to the sites, ensure the safety of people's lives, and provide effective rescue and treatment for the wounded in various special environments. It is conducive to giving full play to the market competition value of public hospital reputation, encouraging hospitals to continuously improve medical technology level, improving medical service quality, actively taking social medical and health responsibility, and this could promote the overall medical and health capacities development.