Dr. Scott views e-health broadly, as the use of any information and communications technology (ICT) to mediate health, healthcare, health education, or health research. He has over 30 years of research and healthcare experience as a medical laboratory technologist, biochemist, clinical chemist, clinical and forensic toxicologist, Director of Research, and 11 years as a telehealth / e-health researcher.

Richard focuses his interests on examining the role of e-health (telehealth + health informatics) in the globalisation of healthcare, including aspects impacting the implementation and integration of e-health globally and locally (‘glocal’ e-health). He promotes the application of ‘culturally sensitive and technologically appropriate’ e-health solutions, and is pursuing collaborative research with colleagues in Asian, African, and Latin American and Caribbean countries.

His research program is directed towards inter-jurisdictional e-health policy (management and facilitation of the complex interactive trans-border environment of glocal e-health), outcomes and evaluation (identifying and defining suitable outcome indicators and developing tools and frameworks for rigorous demonstration of the value of e-health), and environmental e-health (a new area of research spawned by Richard in 2003 to understand the environmental costs and benefits of e-health).

Richard is a Founding member and the Immediate Past-President of the Canadian Society of Telehealth (CST), and current Chairperson of the CST’s International Special Interest Group.