It is deeply ironic to learn from telehealth outfit AlemHealth (see interview) that American radiologists often can not operate across state lines in the USA, but are free to interpret images from Afghanistan, or presumably, anywhere else abroad.

It demonstrates just how far medical professionals in the Western world have managed to protect their practices from the outside world. Nor is this new in teleradiology. German radiologists helped pass a law that means that images of German patients can’t be interpreted outside Germany.  Thus does one of the most well-paid branches of the medical profession protect its interests.

It will be fascinating to see how teleradiology develops in the developing world. We suspect that many such images will be interpreted in low cost India rather than high cost USA and Germany.