Navigating the Role of Regulations in Telemedicine: Bridging the Gap between Innovation, Quality of Care and Patient Protection
INTRODUCTION Telemedicine is defined as "the use of technology (computers, video, phone, messaging) by a healthcare professional to provide diagnosis and treatment to patients in a remote location." [1] It has been shown that telemedicine is quite useful, specifically in underserved populations, where there is a lack or insufficiency of clinical treatment in, for example, remote locations. Indeed, telemedicine and telehealth services, tried and tested to be reliable and cost-effective, are today very widely available in both the developed and developing world. [2] Although the term "telemedicine" was self-promotional, it came into being in India in the year 1999, and the country's government started realizing its potential in 2000. In the year 2001, ISRO introduced the country's first SATCOM-based telemedicine network. [3] It connected Apollo Hospital in Chennai to Apollo Rural Hospital in the hamlet of Aragonda in Andhra Pradesh. The Department of ...