Telemedicine practice guidelines in India: Medico legal implications

Abstract

Providing in-person healthcare services is challenging, especially in a vast country like India, where most of its citizens reside in the rural area. In this scenario, telemedicine can provide faster and timely healthcare services to the needy ones where distance is the critical factor. Healthcare seekers need not travel long miles for obtaining treatment and consultation. In most situation, telemedicine services are beneficial to the patients. A person staying in far remote area may access healthcare facility through telemedicine, thus avoiding issues related to mobility of the patient especially in elderly and debilitated patients. On the other side, telemedicine has its own limitation due to its virtuality. The person staying in remote area may not have access of tools required to access telemedicine facility. Internet connectivity in remote area is another issue. Telemedicine services could change face of providing medical services to the person residing at distant or in remote area if implemented effectively. Proper infrastructure is must to achieve this target. Information technology related instruments and services needs to be strengthened up at grass root level to provide better coverage of telemedicine facilities to needy ones. Telemedicine provides the safety of physicians and the patients, especially where there is a high risk of infection spread, such as in the present COVOD-19 pandemic. Mainstreaming telemedicine in the health system will improve the efficiency and outcome of the country's healthcare system.