Guidelines for the Practice of Telemedicine by Physicians

The  Federation of State Medical Boards has created a draft report titled "Model Policy for the Appropriate Use of Telemedicine Technologies in the Practice of Medicine - a Report of the State Medical Boards’ Appropriate Regulation of Telemedicine (SMART) Workgroup."

The key items listed in the draft report:

• The identity of the provider and patient must be clearly established.
• The provider must be appropriately licensed in the state where the patient is located.
• A patient-doctor relationship must be established
• Follow-up and emergency care must be arranged.
• Appropriate informed consent.
• Medical record keeping
• Patient privacy needs to be maintained

This is a good place to start when looking into the utilization of telemedicine and is an important reference.

Read the draft report here



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