Abstract:

Since the passing of the Telemedicine Act by the Parliament of Malaysia in the year 1997, various telemedicine-related projects, funded either by the government or private sectors were implemented throughout the country with a view to spearhead Malaysia’s K-economy in parallel conformity with Malaysia ’s K-economy blueprint within the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) framework and vision. However, the majority of these telemedicine projects and programmes were not viable and found to be unsustainable due to several contributing factors, including inherent legal weakness, technical inadequacies and weak social support/acceptance. This paper therefore seeks to identify, evaluate, assess and propose several recommendations with regards to existing and future telemedicine-related projects in Malaysia. The results of this paper will provide invaluable input/prospects to both the government of Malaysia, interested stakeholders, and the private telemedicine industry in the design, planning, development and successful realization of a proper telemedicine projects and programmes in Malaysia .