In 2017, amendments to the Federal legislation on health care were adopted, which confirmed the possibility of using telemedicine technologies within the health care system of the Russian Federation. Telemedicine has been successfully used for about 150 years. Since the advent of the first electronic telecommunications, the possibilities for their medical use have been sought. This article systematises information about the history of the use of telecommunications for remote interaction in radiology and presents the way from experiments on facsimile transfer of radiographic images (the 1920–1930s) to the establishment of the teleradiology concept as a tool for solving diagnostic and organisational/managerial problems of radiology (the late 1970s).