The Ministry of Health (MoH) published a draft Regulation on providing remote healthcare services (draft Regulation) and shared it with the stakeholders via the Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association for feedback. The draft Regulation is not currently publicly available. The draft Regulation aims to address the legal gap on telemedicine which has become a more pressing concern due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The most important provisions of the draft Regulation are:
- A remote healthcare information system infrastructure will be introduced to enable written, voice and video communication.
- Healthcare centres that want to provide remote healthcare services will need to obtain an authorisation certificate from the MoH.
- Numerous healthcare services may be provided remotely including examinations, consultations, follow-ups of certain diseases, prescribing medicines and conducting invasive and surgical operations upon receiving approval from the MoH.
- The healthcare centres are responsible for the protection of patient privacy and data, and are required to store and send data regarding remote healthcare services to the MoH's database.
- Healthcare centres that have international healthcare tourism authorisation may also provide remote healthcare services internationally.
The MoH has not provided a deadline for submitting feedback regarding the draft Regulation.
First published by Practical Law in Dec 02, 2021.