The health and medical landscape is changing rapidly.
Digital transformation is gradually being implemented across every industry but healthcare brings its own challenges and obstacles concerning digitisation.
Health tech has the potential to revolutionise patient care and treatment, as well as streamline medical practices and systems – but effectively integrating health tech with an already complicated and legally challenging sector is going to take a significant amount of time.
Health tech is likely to bring about several legal implications in the way that it’s managed and used by healthcare professionals, and we’ll explore some of these issues in this article.
Regulation and Legislation
First of all, health tech is demanding a rethink of health and medical regulatory procedures and legislation.
New possibilities bring about new risks and potential failures which are forcing regulatory bodies to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of new digital health practices.
Across many industries, it’s all too often that regulation only comes into effect after something has gone wrong, but with health tech, this needs to be avoided to protect patient health and wellbeing.
Liability Concerns
Perhaps one of the murkiest areas of health tech, particularly in practical terms, is liability and the question of who is responsible for any issues that arise.
Medical tech assuming some duties from healthcare professionals adds the complication of placing liability in the event of issues or incidents in clinical settings.
Questions arise over whether liability would be placed on the product manufacturer, software developer or healthcare provider and practising professional.
A machine can’t be held liable for medical errors, so identifying clear liability in medical settings is key in assisting external processes such as medical negligence claims and licencing procedures.
This is one of the major areas that needs real consideration before more advanced health tech becomes dominant in the healthcare space.
Data Protection
As with digitisation across the board, data protection is a vital element of health tech that needs to be standardised and prioritised.
The advent of digital patient records and medical data is a significant focus for organisations like the NHS, but these digital records are more liable to data breaches and exposure.
As with wider data protection laws and regulations, the challenges of data in the health and medical industry need to be addressed and patient data needs to be protected.
These are just a few of the most prominent areas surrounding legal implications in the health tech space.
There are a variety of parties involved and stakeholders each with their own agendas, but prioritising patient welfare should be the primary consideration in regulatory procedures and legislation.
