Telemedicine involves the application of electronic communication and software to provide clinical services to the intended patients without an in-person visit. It was coined in the 19th century and has since remained beneficial in the health sector up to the moment.   The method enhances quality healthcare provision, through the increase of accessibility and minimization of traditional barriers created by location and time. The use of telemedicine takes different ethical and legal principles for its effectiveness and efficiency to the patients. The critical basic legal and ethical principles of telemedicine involve confidentiality, non-maleficence, and consent among others. The healthcare professionals, in that case, should, therefore, take responsibility as professionals in maintaining confidentiality and privacy of the patients’ records.  By applying ethical principles, they should also be capable of containing the jurisdiction limitations associated with the cross-border consultations in quality health delivery.

Control of the patient’s data remains in the health professional’s jurisdiction since most patients trust practitioners with their personal health information. It is prudent therefore for the onus to fall on the practitioners in protecting the confidentiality of data. The data may only circulate in the instances where the need of the patient is handled multiprofessionally, but restrictions of confidentiality should remain.  Security of technology is significant in safeguarding the patients and care standards. Therefore individual practitioners should take the ultimate responsibility of protecting the patients from social, emotional, material and spiritual harm.

Data transmission is another ethical principle in telemedicine. The method dramatically relies on data transmission.  It is critical to transmit data through secured networks to maintain the confidentiality and patient’s privacy. During the transfer of the patient’s data, there should be, minimum conditions to be met if other individuals wish to gain access to given patients data. The best way to reduce the risk of unauthorized people accessing data is to control the traffic across the interface between the departmental local area network and external internet. Healthcare professionals should ask the patients if they have any questions that might require more privacy in cases where data is to be shared with other practitioners who are involved in their care. Mostly the telemedicine ethical issues focus on the relationship between the individuals rather than the system they use to communicate.

 
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