Telemedicina: etica, informazione e responsabilità professionale.

Telemedicine — as defined in the European Economic and Social Committee document published on December 23, 2009 in relation with the Communication COM (2008) 689 European Commission (Telemedicine for the benefit of patients, healthcare systems and society) — is the performance of health care services, through the use of ICT, in circumstances in which the physician and the patient (or two physicians) are not in the same location. It involves secure transmission of medical data and information, through text, sound, images or other forms needed for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of patients. Telemedicine is an unexpected “cultural revolution”, can help improve the lives of European citizens, both patients and health professionals, while tackling the challenges to healthcare systems. The development of tools for telemedicine offers the opportunity to find new ideas to the traditional problems of medicine and improve the use of the National Health Service. It was created to health following purposes: secondary prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, monitoring. Now, it was widely recognized that the Telemedicine does not replace the traditional health services in personal patient-physician relationship, but complements it potentially improve effectiveness, efficiency and appropriateness of complying, however, to all their rights and obligations of any medical act with special care of training and information.