In the Australian health sectors, there doesn’t seem to be any overarching, strict and straightforward advice and guidelines given around the security and privacy requirements of telehealth software and equipment.
With that said, the advice provided by MBS Online in May 2012 is summarised below.
- The government is not mandating any particular technological solution for the delivery of Medicare-eligible video consultations
- The specific technical requirements for telehealth consultations vary from speciality to speciality
- It is not necessary for only high-end systems to be used for video consultations as per the government’s effort to avoid imposing unnecessarily stringent and expensive technical requirements
- The professional colleges are the appropriate bodies to set standards
- In general, the telehealth technical solution you choose should be:
- Capable of providing sufficient video quality; and
- Sufficiently secure to ensure normal privacy requirements for health information
In addition, a summary of the Uniquest Report, which was commissioned by the Department of Health, on security, privacy, interoperability and technical requirements of telehealth services can be found here.
