Advantages and Challenges of Telecardiology and Providing Solutions for Its Successful Implementation: A Scoping Review

Context: Implementation of health information technologies such as telecardiology has always been associated with many challenges. Identifying these challenges and planning to address them can lead to success in their implementation. The present study aimed to identify the advantages and disadvantages of using telecardiology and to provide solutions for its successful implementation based on the obtained results. 

Evidence Acquisition: This scoping review was conducted in 2021. A search was done in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases by combining the related keywords. The data were gathered using an excel sheet data extraction form after applying the article selection steps. Then, data analysis was done through the content analysis method and the results were summarized and reported based on the study objectives.

Results: Totally, 30 articles were included in the study based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The advantages of telecardiology were divided into eight main categories, namely facilitating healthcare providing processes, medical education, healthcare quality, increasing Health Care Providers’ (HCP) performance, reducing costs, availability and accessibility of healthcare services, data management, and patient monitoring. Additionally, the challenges of telecardiology implementation were classified into six categories; i.e., economic and financial difficulties, the nature of heart disease, human resources, difficulties related to Information Technology (IT), wearable devices challenges, and uncertainty of results.

Conclusion: Telecardiology systems are recommended to be used more to provide healthcare services to remote and rural areas as well as those with a lack of specialists. Due to the challenges facing the successful implementation of telecardiology, preliminary studies such as feasibility studies and acceptance and initial pre-implementation evaluations are warranted.