Telemedicine flourished during the COVID 19 pandemic and drew significant attention of the public and health care workers. Telemedicine involves application of innovative technologies in the practice of medicine including tele-consultation, remote clinical imagery system, tele-pharmacy and remote health parameters monitoring. The public sector of the Hong Kong health care system is providing over 90% of total health care service demand, in which outpatient service constitute a significant proportion of service. The implement of teleconsultation service has been proven to be safe and effective in reducing health care resources. Conventionally, medical consultations involve in-person contacts. During COVID 19 when inter-personal interaction was limited because social distancing was the main strategy to control the disease spreading. Medical consultations in such circumstances were conducted without inter-personal contacts. There are several crucial components for the success of teleconsultation. These include: 1. Patient registration to the consulting organization with phone call; 2. Prior to the formal consultation, proper reliable information technology (IT) system should be set up by relevant IT expertise; 3. At the time of formal consultation, nurse should verify patients’ identity; 4. Formal consultation between doctor and patient (comply the medico-legal regulation); 5. Documentations of the information taking during the consultation; 6. Issue certificates or prescriptions; 7. Drug delivery. Upon the release of practice guidelines from the Medical Council of Hong Kong in late 2019, the practice of teleconsultation has gained more acceptance by the health care practitioners. It is no doubt that telemedicine will be the main strategy for the health care system to face the challenges ahead, not only in Hong Kong but also the Greater Bay Area, China.
