The legal and ethical aspects of telemedicine

Abstract

The medical challenge presented by telemedicine is for doctors to find satisfactory ways of doing their jobs from a distance. The legal and ethical challenge presented by telemedicine is to ensure that the very highest standards are met from the outset. This can be achieved only by the legal and medical professions learning to combine their expertise, rather than by the former adopting the adversarial stance that has come to punctuate its relationship with the latter in recent years.

Tele-monitoring of ventilator-dependent patients: a European Respiratory Society Statement

“…Despite many processes of tele-consultation are unique, the legal principles applying to conventional, face-to-face, doctor-patient relationships may be equally as valid in the context of the practice of medicine at a distance [51,52]. In tele-medicine, three roles can be held legally liable for the delivered performance [52]:…”

“…The use of tele-monitoring carries several risks [52][53][54]: tele-consultation may fail to reach standard of care; equipment or system may fail; electronic data can be manipulated; the electronic record may be subject to abuse; the network may suffer from poor data protection ( poor confidentiality, authenticity, data report, procedure certification, security and privacy); the network may show difficulty to ascertain responsibilities and potential obligations of health professionals.…”

Medical assistance at the sea: legal and medico-legal problems

“…In Scandinavia all the professionals physicians need to stipulate an insurance in case of harm to patients. The victim does not need to demonstrate any possible error of the professional, but simply that there was a causal link between the medical act and the harm suffered [18][19][20][21].…”

The use of email as a component of adult stammering therapy: a preliminary report

“…25,26 Clients are informed of the possible benefits and security risks in using email and Case records are a necessary part of health interventions as evidence of client contact and management plans but unlike written records composed from the therapist"s recall and understanding of the session, the printouts of emails sent and received offer an exact record of the therapeutic exchange. These could be argued to be a more trustworthy account of events should this ever need scrutinised in the future, 13 given that the permanent record "forces impeccable ethics" (p. 27).…”