Selfie Telemedicine - What Are the Legal and Regulatory Issues?
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Abstract
Selfies self taken photographs using mobile phones or tablet computers have become a way of life People are now sending selfies to health professionals for medical advice or dermatology triage or postoperative wound assessment These selfies may be unsolicited and sent to clinicians with whom the patient may or may not have a prior doctor patient relationship or on the instruction of the attending doctor or even to social media groups They may be sent by email or by mobile phone and instant messaging applications or sent to Websites or telemedicine specific application sites These photographs and accompanying information are legal documents should form part of the patient s record and should be securely transmitted and stored to maintain patient confidentiality and privacy This paper reviews the legal ethical and regulatory issues associated with the different forms of selfie telemedicine METHOD A scoping literature review was undertaken using PubMed Scopus Science Direct Ebsco Host and Google Scholar which were searched for Selfie and any of medicine telemedicine telehealth eHealth or mHealth Inclusion criteria were that the paper was in English and described the use of a selfie in relation to healthcare These were then reviewed for reference to legal ethical issues and regulatory issues RESULTS 68 papers met the inclusion criteria Legal and ethical issues identified were consent confidentiality privacy the doctor patient relationship data security responsibility record keeping licensure continuity of care quality of care image quality concordance phone stewardship and patient satisfaction CONCLUSION The literature provides little guidance on how legal and ethical issues and shortcomings of selfie telemedicine should be addressed especially the responsibilities of the patient and physician for unsolicited requests Nor does it provide advice on how records are to be kept or how images and information stored and sent to and from mobile phones or computers are to be managed The new issues that arise need to be addressed