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The legal challenges of telemedicine

· 6 min read
Taig Mac Carthy
Co-founder at Legit.Health
Disclaimer

This post is a summary of the event held at Comillas ICADE Law School, focused on the legal aspects of remote medicine.

telemedicine with Movistar, enrique ruiz and taig mac carthy

The Comillas ICADE Law School held the 1st Telemedicine Conference within the Uría Menéndez-ICADE Chair on Market Regulation. The Conference had the participation of representatives of the public and private sectors who have had the opportunity to review the situation of telemedicine in our country.

Relevant issues such as ethical, data protection and regulatory or responsibility aspects of telemedicine have been reviewed, concluding on the feasibility and necessity of the practice. Likewise, the essential public-private collaboration to promote the digitization of health has been highlighted as one more lever than those envisaged in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan financed with NextGenUE funds.

In the different round tables, an interesting tour has been made on the state of the practice of telemedicine both in the private sector, as well as in the public health and social health sector.

Speakers

The speakers highlight the contribution of telemedicine in the crisis derived from the COVID-19 pandemic, and agree on the potential that the digitization of healthcare services offers. Telemedicine must be consolidated as the definitive impulse for the digitalization of the health system.

Dr Ricardo Ruiz (ICD)

Dr. Ricardo Ruiz, medical director of the International Dermatology Clinic (CDI), first Spanish center where clinical, surgical, oncological, paediatric and restorative dermatology is carried out jointly. He aims to offer the highest scientific rigour and provide his patients with a unique quality of care.

Taig Mac Carthy (Legit.Health)

As Co-founder and COO of Legit.Health, Taig Mac Carthy seeks to offer dermatologists the keys to enhancing their professional experience. Developing, always with a focus on data protection and privacy, the perfect tool for a user experience and usability.

Andres Padilla (Movistar Salud)

With solid experience in the world of technology and telecommunications, Andrés Padilla, is an expert on understanding customer needs, market trends and emerging technologies. He seeks to offer medical solutions thanks to the facilities and modernity offered by Movistar telemedicine service, which allows patients to be connected to a doctor wherever they are.

Next Generation Dermatology

We are in the middle of the artificial intelligence revolution. Created to facilitate and modernize dermatologist's work, Legit.Health algorithms ensure quality medical care. The speed of the automatic results brings easier disease monitorization, with complete security and data protection, making this software one of the best tools available nowadays.

Legit.Health gives doctors the ability to telematically and rapidly track skin lesions, providing automated monitoring of changes during the course of the disease, which are often invisible to the human eye. Offering dermatologists all the tools that they need to empower their patients to take control of their disease and not the other way around.

Telemedicine was born to stay and bring with it the opportunity to generate new platforms that can help save lives. This is why Legit.Health is so advantageous and necessary for dermatologists, because it provides them a new way for interacting with patients, ensuring them a good monitoring of their pathology, inside and outside the clinic.

Legit.Health technology is at the service of doctors who only have to worry about making the diagnosis of the patient. Helping them to make a better use of their time, removing the unnecessary follow-up visits on their consults, and providing an error-free evaluation, speeding up the cure of their patients' disease.

From home, patients only need to take their smartphones and take a photo of the spot, welt or redness of their skin and fill out a short medical questionnaire. Thanks to Artificial Intelligence, the tool objectively communicates to the doctor the type of pathology, the patient's condition and the changes in the lesion. Putting the patient in the foreground, much more informed and sure of his illness.

This is the beginning of the dermatology revolution, a new generation of dermatologists, like Dr. Ricardo Ruiz Rodriguez, medical director of the CDI clinic. Professionals like them are looking to take advantage of the opportunities they have around them to continue growing as doctors and learning new techniques and tools to improve the lives of their patients, without the need to see patients on site.

A vision of the future

Global health management, during the pandemic, has proved that we are still lacking in resources in terms of medical care.

Cancelled medical tests, postponed consultations, treatments without follow-up... Many patients have had limited access to the health system because resources had to be used to tackle an unprecedented health crisis. Thousands of patients with chronic diseases had to reduce or even cease their treatment because they had no place in medical centers. A very problematic situation for skin diseases such as melanoma, since a delay in the follow-up of the pathology reduces considerably the life expectancy of the patient.

This is why digital telemedicine platforms are here to stay. Specifically, Legit.Health Artificial Intelligence ensures quality medical care, providing specialized follow-up to those patients who need to have their disease under control.

Equipped with machine-learning algorithms, Legit.Health software provides dermatologists with the perfect tool for their consultations, offering them a vision of the future, with many tools and mechanisms to take their practice to another level. With reliable results of up to 83% in skin diseases such as dermatitis and 94% in melanoma.

By simply analyzing images taken through any conventional smartphone, Legit.Health algorithms are capable of automatically filling in the scoring systems of up to 232 skin diseases. Such as UAS7, PASI, SCORAD, BSA or DLQI among many others. This greatly speeds up the work of professionals, who only have to worry about offering an evaluation to their patients in the form of an easy and simple diagnosis.

The future of healthcare also demands that patients take a more active role in caring for their own illness. Using tools that they can integrate into their everyday life. Legit.Health achieves greater patient empowerment in a systematic way that allows them to assess advances in their treatments and help doctors to document the process of their disease. Patients can report their pathologies just when they need it, and algorithms ensure that the doctor gets the right information, in the right way, and at the right time.