Health and Family Planning Commission: Internet medical treatment is prohibited, only health consultation

According to the Voice of China News and Newspaper Digest, whether Internet medical care can break through the restricted area of diagnosis and treatment has always attracted attention from all parties. Song Shuli, a spokesman for the National Health and Family Planning Commission, recently made it clear that medical diagnosis and treatment on the Internet is not allowed, and only health consultations can be made. Song Shuli said that according to the main body of medical implementation, telemedicine includes two categories: one is telemedicine between medical institutions, and between medical institutions, especially those with relatively poor conditions and low medical level, send some specialist or comprehensive forces to medical institutions. Stronger experts from large hospitals come to seek help, which is to provide telemedicine services to patients between medical institutions. The second category is that medical institutions use information technology to directly provide medical services to patients, which we call "telemedicine".

Song Shushu said that since telemedicine is different from face-to-face diagnosis and treatment, the National Health and Family Planning Commission has strict requirements on relevant institutions and personnel in order to ensure the quality and safety supervision of telemedicine.

Song Shuli: For example, these services are only allowed to be carried out by medical institutions. Medical institutions must have corresponding qualifications to carry out services of a certain category and a certain specialty. It is impossible to carry out telemedicine services for this specialty without this specialty. Doctors who carry out telemedicine services must also have corresponding professional qualifications. Medical institutions must strictly abide by relevant laws, regulations and codes of conduct in the process of carrying out telemedicine services to ensure quality and safety, and at the same time, protect patients' right to know.