Reflections on Telemedicine with an Emphasis on Ethical Aspects: A Review

Telemedicine refers to a kind of treatment in which all medical interventions, diagnoses, treatment decisions, and recommendations are made using the patient’s data, documents, and other information transmitted through telecommunication systems. Telemedicine might run between one patient and one physician or one patient and several physicians, including other healthcare specialists. Telemedicine and E-Health have brought about great advantages to the current healthcare systems. Healthcare services are provided comprehensively through these innovative technologies. However, there are plenty of legal, ethical, security, and confidentiality concerns regarding a patient’s medical information. These concerns cause a series of complications for the patient, the medical team, and healthcare service providing systems, among which the disclosure of medical records can be mentioned, which might result in all types of discriminations, accusations, and violation of the patient’s basic rights. The present study reviews some ethical issues in the field of telemedicine.