Remote monitoring tool, remote diagnostic tool

Draft amendment to Decree 60/2003 of 20 October of the Minister for Health, Social and Family Affairs on the minimum professional requirements necessary for providing healthcare services and to Decree 9/2012 of 28 February of the Minister for National Resources on the definition of specialised outpatient care services that can be covered by the National Health Insurance Fund, on the eligibility conditions and rules applicable during the use of such services and on the recognition of performance.

The term telemedicine denotes healthcare services that involve the use of an infocommunication tool and do not the require the personal presence of the patient. Such services allow patient care with a higher-level of patient comfort and, in many respects, with more favourable conditions for healthcare service providers.
This draft is intended to establish those basic professional rules which enable the provision of telemedicine services most demanded by the population, taking into consideration the content of the long-term regulatory framework when establishing the regulations.
In the first phase of the regulation, it is allowed - beside activities based on conventional personal encounters, such as consultations between doctors/healthcare professionals and patients or consultations between doctors

- for medical specialists/healthcare professionals to perform the following activities in their competence, based on the transfer of medical data via infocommunication tools, and in compliance with the legal provisions on the protection and management of medical data and related personal data without personal presence:
a) make a diagnosis or recommend therapy;
b) perform counselling or consultation;
c) perform patient management;
d) give referrals;
e) perform care activities;
f) perform therapy and rehabilitation activities;
g) prescribe medications;
h) prescribe therapeutic equipment that can be ordered via ePrescription.

The use of telemedicine care is recommended - still on a supplementary basis - where the conditions for telemedicine are established to be existent on the basis of the consideration of all circumstances of the case and on the basis of its professional medical assessment.
The draft includes the general rules on the minimum requirements for the infocommunication technological conditions applicable in healthcare, and allows, in justified cases, the application of telemedicine in general medical practice, general paediatric practice and specialist medical practice.
With regard to general medical practice, general paediatric practice, there is no need for a dedicated rule on financing. However, in specialist medical practice, it is necessary to define which procedures or interventions are covered by the National Health Insurance Fund of Hungary even when performed in the form of telemedicine.