The American College of Physicians and the Federation of State Medical Boards’ guidelines for online medical professionalism apply existing norms of communication and confidentiality to new settings but will need to be modified in light of technological advances and unanswered questions.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(5):441-447. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.5.nlit1-1505.
Instead of trying to reduce the number of people who have access to a patient's medical record by quarantining information, hospitals should explain the current meaning of confidentiality to patients as part of the informed consent process.
Arguments that mistrust about information security will deter patients from embracing telehealth care ignore patients' willingness to take on risk in the pursuit of health benefits and the role physicians will play in encouraging adoption.
Determining the severity of a breach of medical privacy, and therefore whether or not it will be reported to the US Department of Health and Human Services, by the patient's reaction puts the hospital's interest in avoiding reporting breaches above the patient's best interests.
In a study of New York physicians' compliance with reporting of communicable diseases, surveyed physicians responded better to legal warnings than to requests that explained public health benefits.
A review of research that found that physicians disciplined by state medical boards were as much as three times more likely than controls to have had a record of unprofessional behavior in medical school.