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KMID : 0986720130210020201
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Korean Journal of Medicine and Law
2013 Volume.21 No. 2 p.201 ~ p.219
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Review on the physician-patient telemedicine in legal and social systemic aspect
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Moon Jong-Youn
Yoo Byung-In
Park Kwan-Jun
Choi Jong-Yoon
Jhang Won-Gi
Park Yoon-Hyung
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Abstract
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As information and communication technology(IT) develops, each country is reviewing legal and institutional expansion of telemedicine. It is also expected to allow the physician-patient telemedicine service in Korea by adding the principle of face to face medical service to its Health care Law. But because telemedicine is not a new medical treatment but a complementary measure of treatment in hospital, it is necessary to have a precedent that shows the allowance of the present medical law and a careful review of the law. To conduct a direct telemedicine between doctor and patient, details such as ways to issue a prescription remotely and preservation of medical record in telemedicine system should be arranged in advance. A thorough protection is needed for the prescription as it is related to private medical information. But the related system is still far from perfect due to the lay in arranging and presenting the measures for safe issue and preservation of the prescription. The most practical use of telemedicine system at present is to get a prescription from a doctor after a remote consulting on the contents of self-care, self hypertension measuring, and self-blood sugar measuring of a patient with non communicable disease. It should also clarified whether the application for using self-managing biomedical information in the treatment is approved as a medical instrument or not. Regarding this matter, the U.S. FDA has announced a guideline and Korea Food & Drug Administration is giving answers to related questions. With respect to the possibility of invigorating telemedicine system in the medical market, experts say it would not give much influence on the market as it is just a complementary measure of the original medical treatment. The medical community and experts are skeptical about allowing the telemedicine system despite the fact that it is expected to resolve the problem of accessibility among underserved areas such as islands and population such as the elderly and lead to the development of the medical market and also the general industry. They say it will hardly improve the accessibility for underserved areas and population because of difficult access to high-tech gadgets and application such as smart phones, which is required to be used in telemedicine system. They also expect only the slightest contribution to the development of industry expected by the government because the telemedicine system as a complementary measure of treatment is not expected to give a significant change to the medical market. The opinions of stakeholder regarding this policy are greatly varied. While physician, healthcare-related NGO, and KMA are actively opposing to this policy, IT industry and the government financial departments (Ministry of Strategy and Finance, Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy) say the policy is indispensable. In conclusion, it presently appears to be inappropriate and impossible to conduct telemedicine system through the law revision. It should be carried out based on the social agreement.
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KEYWORD
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Telemedicine, IT industry, Health, medical law, hospital
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FullTexts / Linksout information
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Listed journal information
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