Regulating telemedicine
We all have come to value telemedicine and healthcare through information and communication technology in the era of Covid-19. Realising the importance of providing online healthcare, the Sindh government has prepared a bill to regulate telemedicine. The initiative is praiseworthy. Now practitioners of telemedicine and organisations engaged in providing medicare services online will have to get registered with the provincial health department. They will have to clear an online exam to practise telemedicine. The law will enable individual doctors as well as those working with public and public hospitals to practise telemedicine. The law prohibits sharing of information concerning patients without the consent of patients and their guardians. Those violating this rule will be liable to be fined Rs100,000 or imprisonment for two years or both.
There was indeed the need for regulating online provision of healthcare services in order to eliminate the misuse of the system. The outreach of telemedicine is so wide that it will reduce the burden on hospitals and provide healthcare to people living in remote rural areas. Considering the increasing traffic congestion in cities, it will also provide timely medical help in urban areas far from major hospitals or clinics of specialist doctors. Telemedicine is of great importance for countries where the majority of the population lives in rural areas. The provision of online healthcare will save money and time spent on travelling to and from hospitals. The bill will protect both patients and doctors. Since telemedicine is being practised in many countries for more than two decades, we hope that those who had prepared the draft bill should have deeply studied the successes, failures and experience of other countries. We should gain from their experience in order to provide better telehealth care services.
In the next 20 years, most doctors will likely be examining patients and prescribing medicines online, and patients visiting hospitals and clinics will become a quaint thing. This is how machines reduce human effort.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 25th, 2021.
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