Global Telehealth 2018 (GT2018) continues the series of international conferences initiated in Perth in 2010 with endorsement by the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth (ISfTeH). Subsequent meetings were held in Sydney AU (2012), Durban ZA (2014), Toronto CA (2015), Auckland NZ (2016) and Adelaide AU (2017). GT2018 will be hosted by the Commonwealth Medical Association and the Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka, supported by the Asia Pacific Association for Medical Informatics (APAMI) and the Asia eHealth Information Network. The overall event to be held over one week will combine GT2018 with the other events forming Digital Health Week. The joint conferences will consist of coordinated parallel and plenary oral presentation sessions, as well as poster and product display sessions. An associated vendor exhibition and a workshop / tutorial programme will be held in conjunction.  The GT2018 track will be scheduled over two successive days to allow all authors to make oral presentations of their papers.

The Telehealth domain of interest covers a broad scope: from enabling direct clinical interventions and interactions by real-time or store-forward processes, to patient centred care needs such as personal monitoring and care team support, and to education, policy and professional aspects. Telehealth contributes to the new challenges of healthcare sustainability, supporting development and delivery on a wide scale of innovative models of care for treatment of disease, patient health management, home-based care and self-care, preventive health and health promotion. Telehealth also acts as a major change driver in global health issues aided by the rapid uptake of leapfrog new technologies like mobile wireless communications, smart phones or tablet computers, website and internet-based online resources. Mainstream activities in healthcare systems internationally leverage Telehealth to address these areas, with overarching aspirations to improve access, efficiency, quality and safety. This conference provides a platform for sharing of related best practice and directions across the international community.