현행법상 원격의료의 허용범위에 관한 법적 고찰

The Korea government is scrambling to several pilot projects for the activation of telemedicine services. In 2003, at the time of the first regulations relating to telemedicine on medical law, the purpose of legislation was only intended to take advantage of medical personnel’s knowledge of the professional sector engaged in a large medical institutions from a distance. But information & communication technology and medical technology have developed rapidly over the past 10 years, to keep pace with development, the government aims to extend telemedicine services focused on a form that doctors can diagnose and prescribe through the patient’s status directly via a variety of electronic devices in the patient’s house or the outside, not medical institutions. Medical treatment is in a field required a high level of expertise to deal with human life and human body. Accordingly, the expansion of telemedicine has problems with that the medical non-specialist in remote locations are made through the parameters of medical care, so telemedicine policy should be necessarily required to a legal basis. However, it is still controversial in the medical law whether it is possible to care many patients outside medical institutions by using information and communication equipment with physicians in other regions. The government is not analyzing clearly each remote medical treatments, these attitudes are revealed in the process of pilot projects for telemedicine services. Since technology development and application of telemedicine services is done within legal permissible range, it is very important matter that setting a range of medical treatments which may be made remotely in the current law. But, in order to determine the permissible range of remote medical treatments, The prior review is needed whether in-person medical treatments between patients and physicians are the fundamental principle in the current law. After reviewing the significance and scope of in-person medical treatments, hence it will be considered whether to allow or deny remote monitoring, remote examination, remote diagnosis, remote prescription. Furthermore, the permissible range of telemedicine services under the proposed revision will be reviewed by each remote medical treatments through the review of currently promoting the Medical Service Act Revision.