Telemedicine Services in Arctic Environments – Challenges for Successful Implementation

The growing interest in Arctic areas, both from professionals and tourists, is a challenge for the health care system in areas suffering from extreme weather conditions, long distances and poor communication network coverage. Offering adequate health care services for people who live in these Arctic areas might be very difficult in part of the year. Access to medical services, in particular specialist services, is limited. In cases of emergency such as a large-scale accident, the system is further challenged. This paper discusses major challenges for successful implementation of telemedicine services in Arctic environments, with a special focus on handling accidents. Lessons learned from less challenging regions will be addressed in order to recommend a common set of critical success factors for implementing telemedicine service.