With the development of technology, telemedicine began to grow rapidly and cover increasingly more areas. Despite the term is not commonly used in everyday life, telemedicine includes many things familiar to the vast majority of people. Basically, telemedicine can be defined as transmitting medical information with the use of telecommunications. Thus, a very extensive list of operations falls under this definition. Without knowing, one could use telemedicine when calling a doctor to get medical advice or looking for information on the Internet. However, this industry has given much more the world and has been saving lives for decades, although many still haven’t used the advantages provided by professional telemedical services.
Telemedicine began decades ago
The term was first used in 1974. Telemedicine is not a new phenomenon, as it might seem. In fact, the idea of providing remote medical services arose a century ago. It was then, after the invention of the telephone, that people tried to transmit the sound of a heartbeat so that the doctor could evaluate the patient’s condition. Needless to say, such attempts were not much viable.
When intensive space exploration began in the second half of the 20th century, it was necessary to find a way to monitor astronauts’ physiological functions from an extremely long distance. Back then, first telemetric systems were developed and later used in sports, aviation, and military medicine.
In 1959, a Canadian doctor Albert Yutras, for the first time, transmitted a video signal from the hospital to his home receiver. Subsequently, he created a telemedicine system that linked two hospitals in Montreal to implement teleradiological diagnostics. In the same year, for the first time, a remote demonstration of patients with neurological diseases was held for medical students at the Nebraska Psychiatric Institute. But perhaps the most striking achievement of this year was a successful attempt to transmit a radiograph of the lungs from the USA to Canada via coaxial cable.
The 70s have given a large number of telemetric systems and devices to the world. In general, these were experimental devices used only in rare cases.
An important stage in the development of telemedicine was the emergence of mobile medical stations, which made it possible to provide remote assistance in distant regions through the use of satellite technology. This project was created by NASA and named STARPAHC (Space Technology Applied to Rural Papago Advanced Health Care). Thanks to this project, almost 4,000 people from the Papago tribe in southern Arizona were able to receive professional medical care.
Despite certain breakthroughs happened in the second half of the 20th century, we were able to observe the real boom of telemedicine only towards the end of the century. This was facilitated by the global development of information technology and the implementation of international programs and documents regulating the use of telemedicine.
Today telemedicine offers a wider range of services and is available to a much greater number of people. Here, the key role belongs to the rapid expansion of smartphones; cellular communication and Internet have penetrated even the places where medical help is mostly unavailable. Convenience and easy access to mobile technologies have increased the attractiveness of telemedicine for patients. The ability to reduce time and material costs of diagnosis and treatment have become the key factors for doctors and medical institutions to show a growing interest in this field.
Types of telemedical services
The global telemedicine market can be segmented according to several criteria, including:
- The nature of interaction (doctor-doctor, doctor-patient).
- Technical parameters of interaction (monitoring systems, communication channels, measuring devices and sensors, video conferencing systems, databases, mobile and “wearable” technologies, etc.).
- Purpose of use (medical education, diagnosis, monitoring, counseling, treatment).
Thus, the field of telemedicine is truly extensive: it can be used to broadcast the most complex surgeries online, using high definition video and medical sensor data, or to establish simple video communication between a doctor and a patient. Healthcare systems being developed nowadays are truly amazing and, corresponding to the state of modern technology, include wearable sensors, artificial intelligence and our medical data being processed in the cloud to warn us about possible health treats. While this alone is an exciting topic, many readers would like to know how they in particular can benefit from telemedicine right now.
Telemedicine implemented by online pharmacies
Online pharmacies have been around for more than two decades. In 1999, Drugstore.com became the first widely known online pharmacy where customers could order drugs safely and have them delivered to one’s doorstep. Given the steady increasing prices of life-saving drugs in the United States and other countries, Canadian online pharmacies have become very popular, especially among Americans who have sought to reduce the treatment costs.
While buying non-prescription products was quite straightforward, ordering drugs that required a prescription apparently was more problematic. Most popular prescription drugs include sleeping pills, antidepressants, and erectile dysfunction pills. To release such drugs without a doctor’s prescription is illegal in most world’s countries. Moreover, taking these potent drugs without initial medical consultation can be dangerous and even fatal.
Fortunately, a legal prescription could be uploaded directly to the website and checked by the company’s pharmacist. Telemedicine, however, brought convenience one step further, and allowed to receive e-prescriptions granted after an online consultation. At present, this service is formally recognized and regulated by state law in most countries. In recent years, online pharmacies have been widely implementing remote consultations in their services. This allows customers to save time and money that would have been spent on visiting the hospital. Not to mention, some patients feel embarrassed to speak about problems like depression, erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation while being face to face with medical staff.
Critics state that remote diagnosis cannot replace a real-life conversation between a physician and a patient, including full examination, which is impossible to conduct by the means of a video-call. Others insist that full examination is not required to diagnose depression, insomnia and many other widespread diseases. However, ordering prescription drugs and arranging consultations to obtain the necessary document through a single web service is gaining momentum due to its convenience and low cost. Although some people still prefer traditional methods, it should be expected that the popularity of telemedicine will grow worldwide.
Telemedicine in Mexico in 2026
Mexico entered 2026 with one of the most important changes to its digital healthcare framework in many years. On January 15, 2026, a reform of the General Health Law was published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación, adding a separate chapter on Digital Health. For the first time, the federal law now expressly places telehealth, telemedicine, mobile health, electronic medical records and wearable devices within the same digital-health framework instead of treating remote medicine mainly through general healthcare rules and technical guidance.
This change is more important than it might initially seem. The new provisions describe digital health as a way to provide medical services without unnecessary travel, improve the use of medical personnel and technology, expand access in communities where conventional medical infrastructure is limited, connect healthcare professionals with specialists, and maintain medical information electronically so that it can follow the patient through the healthcare system. The law also recognizes the use of large amounts of health data for improving diagnosis, treatment and hospital management. In other words, telemedicine in Mexico is no longer developing only as a convenient alternative to an office visit. It is becoming part of the infrastructure through which the public healthcare system itself is expected to operate.
There are also requirements behind this expansion. Telehealth services must be provided by personnel designated and trained for this purpose, while the systems being used must protect confidentiality, personal information, integrity and availability of medical data. Informed consent must be obtained for remote care, and the consultation has to be properly documented. The Ministry of Health is also responsible for developing guidance, security protocols, professional training and methods for evaluating how well public digital-health services actually work.
Electronic records are particularly important here. Mexico already has the NOM-024-SSA3-2012 standard, which remains in force and regulates electronic health-record information systems and the exchange of health information. Its purpose is not simply to make a paper chart digital. The standard establishes a framework under which medical information can be generated, processed, protected and exchanged between healthcare information systems, which becomes much more important once patients begin moving between physical care and remote services.
Technology is also becoming less of a barrier for a large part of the population. According to the ENDUTIH 2025 results published by INEGI in June 2026, 86.1% of people aged six and older in Mexico used the Internet, representing approximately 104.9 million people. Ten years earlier, the figure was 57.4%, or 61.4 million users. Internet service was available in 78.3% of Mexican households, while 84.6% of people used a cellular phone.
However, these numbers also explain why telemedicine cannot be built only around smartphone applications. Internet use reached 88.9% in urban areas but 75.2% in rural areas, so a meaningful digital divide still exists precisely in many of the regions where remote medicine can be most useful. Access among older adults is improving rapidly as well. In 2025, 57.8% of people aged 65 to 74 used the Internet, compared with only 11% a decade earlier, while use among those aged 75 and older increased from 3% to 30%.
The changes can already be seen inside Mexico’s public healthcare institutions. One of the clearest examples comes from ISSSTE. In December 2025, its telemedicine network included 239 medical units. By May 2026, that number had increased to 859 units, after another 620 facilities were connected. According to ISSSTE, 118 second- and third-level hospitals and clinics now provide specialist teleconsultations, while 741 primary-care units can receive those services. The purpose is quite practical: a patient can remain at the local clinic while a specialist located elsewhere participates in the evaluation, avoiding a long trip simply to reach a higher-level hospital.
IMSS-Bienestar is moving in a similar direction, although its challenge is different because much of its work involves people without social-security coverage and communities where healthcare resources may be scarce. Its Institutional Program for 2025-2030 places digitalization among the main elements of the future healthcare model and specifically calls for telemedicine to improve care in remote areas, better coordination with specialists and follow-up of treatment. The program also describes an interoperable national electronic medical record and the use of mobile medical units, while current IMSS-Bienestar materials include an operational guide for providing specialized medical care through telemedicine in those mobile units.
Telemedicine in Mexico is also becoming broader than the familiar doctor-patient video call. In May 2026, the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition Salvador Zubirán described its digital-health strategy as including patient education, training of healthcare professionals, remote assistance between medical personnel and technological tools for clinical follow-up. In July, the Ministry of Health also highlighted tele-nursing as a way to monitor chronic conditions, continue care and provide health education remotely without replacing in-person attention when physical evaluation is necessary.
This distinction is especially important when telemedicine is connected with online pharmacies. Filling out a questionnaire or exchanging several messages before purchasing a medicine does not by itself turn an online order into a medical consultation. A proper remote medical service still involves a healthcare professional, clinical evaluation, appropriate documentation, privacy protection and a decision about whether remote care is sufficient in that particular case. If symptoms require physical examination, laboratory testing, imaging or urgent treatment, digital communication should become the route to further care and not a substitute for it.
At the same time, there are many situations where the distance between doctor and patient does not prevent useful medical work. Follow-up of stable chronic conditions, review of laboratory results, certain specialist consultations, medication monitoring, health education and coordination between a primary-care doctor and a distant specialist can all be performed remotely when the clinical situation allows it. This is exactly why Mexico’s current telemedicine development is important. It is not simply moving the traditional consultation onto a screen.