Ethical Assessment of Virtual Consultation Services: Scoping Review and Development of a Practical Ethical Checklist

• Type of ProjectResearch
• Stage of CompletionCompleted
• Area of InterestTechnology, Medical, Other, Primary care
• Health DomainProvider, Equity, Consumer, Law, policy & ethics, Data & digital
• Geographic RegionNational, International
• Priority PopulationN/A

Organisation: University of Otago (with Health Research Council funding)

This project involved development of a novel framework of 25 questions for the ethical assessment of direct-to-consumer virtual consultation/telehealth services in New Zealand, based on a scoping review of relevant international literature. Six key themes were identified from this review (privacy, security, and confidentiality; equity; autonomy and informed consent; quality and standards of care; patient empowerment; and continuity of care), and the 25 questions included in the framework were based on these themes and their subthemes. This framework was then applied to six direct-to-consumer virtual consultation services in New Zealand - this latter project will be uploaded as a separate registration form (in keeping with the publication of two separate articles for each project stage).

DOI from Journal of Primary Health Care: Ethical assessment of virtual consultation services: scoping review and development of a practical ethical checklist

First part of project (scoping review and checklist development): read here. 

If you would like more information about this project, please email us.