Regulatory Issues in Telehealth

Abstract

Telehealth and digital health more broadly have become two of the fastest growing IT sectors in the world. They have the potential to transform lives everywhere, often before regulation has had the chance to catch up to everyday reality in healthcare. This chapter is grounded in clinical practice occurring at the time of writing and discusses at a high level regulatory issues in telehealth. This chapter argues that complexities regarding regulation over clinical applicability, patient identification, bandwidth, and funding mechanisms, as well as data storage, jurisdiction, and usage should not prevent uptake of telehealth and digital health given the clinical benefits of telehealth in countries such as Australia and internationally.