Connectivity infrastructure for a telehealth platform

A telehealth system, comprising:

• a public communications network (PCN);
• a plurality of provider access devices coupled to the PCN;
• a plurality of patient access devices that can be controlled by any of the plurality of provider access devices, the plurality of patient access devices including a first patient access device at a first location coupled to the PCN via a first local area network (LAN) and a first firewall and a second patient access device at a second location coupled to the PCN via a second LAN and a second firewall;
• a monitoring server coupled to the PCN, the monitoring server receives status information from the plurality of patient access devices, wherein the status information includes presence information indicating the availability of the patient access device to participate in a communication session and device status of the patient access device;
• a connectivity server coupled to the PCN, the connectivity server includes a database of connectivity rules, each connectivity rule including an identification of a healthcare provider and a location of patient access device the healthcare provider is authorized to access;
• and,
• a plurality of geographically dispersed communications servers coupled to the PCN, each of the plurality of communication servers has a network address on the PCN and is configured to establish a two-way audio/video communication session between one of the provider access devices and one of the patient access devices, wherein,
• at least one of the plurality of communications servers receives and maintains at least a portion of the database of connectivity rules from the connectivity server;
• the first communication firewall and the second communication firewall are configured to allow incoming communications from the network addresses of at least one of the plurality of communication servers;
• the provider access device transmits the identification of a healthcare provider to the communications server and receives from the communications server a list of patient access device locations that the healthcare provider is authorized to access and a status of each patient access device at each of the received locations;
• the provider access device receives a selection of a patient access device location from the healthcare provider and communicates the selected location to an optimal one of the plurality of communications servers, wherein the optimal one of the plurality of communication servers is chosen based on at least one of server proximity, server load, and network conditions;
• the optimal communications server establishes a communication session between the provider access device and the patient access device at the selected location;
• and,
• the monitoring server stores information regarding the established communication session in a reporting database.