The Virtual Physician: Clarifying Medical Liability Issues in the Use of Remote Patient Monitoring

Abstract

More than ever before, information and communication technologies are playing an important role in the provision of health care services. As a form of telehealth, remote patient monitoring (RPM) uses information technologies and telecommunication tools to collect health data from patients outside of traditional health care institutional settings and transmit the data to health care providers for monitoring and evaluation. There are many challenges to RPM’s greater implementation in health care, including the potential for risk of harm for patients, and uncertainty regarding the liability of physicians utilizing RPM. Uncertain medical liability may have a chilling effect on the greater clinical use of RPM. To date, medical liability issues regarding RPM have not been addressed by courts and there is a paucity of literature on the topic. This article attempts to clarify some of the liability issues raised by RPM. To help guide physicians in their use of RPM, I propose the adoption of professional guidelines specific to RPM that courts can use in determining whether physicians have breached relevant standards of practice. Furthermore, by providing evidence-based standards, guidelines can mitigate risks of patient injury and reduce physicians’ reticence to adopt RPM.