Standards and Accreditation for Telehealth Services

  • Neja Samar Brenčič - .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
  • Drago Rudel - .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Vision:
To provide a new foundation on the basis of which successful and sustainable telehealth services can be built - carrying the trust of clinicians, health, social care and support practitioners, services users as well as formal and informal carers.

The Standards and Accreditation for Telehealth Services Working (SATS) Group will provide an environment where stakeholders (researchers, innovators, developers, companies, policy-makers) can work together to create standards to improve the quality of patient-centric telehealth services worldwide.

Mission:
To enable the exchange of knowledge and experience among stakeholders in relation to service quality, appropriate standards and/or codes of practice, certification and/or accreditation procedures and policies for Telehealth Services (THS).

Objectives:

  1. Technology:
    • Advocating for:
      • increased use of THS wherever applicable by clinicians, professionals, patients and other users
      • evaluation of THS on national, European and wider international levels
      • appropriate standards be used as normative documents
      • the adoption of interoperability and open protocols
  2. Innovation:
    • Stimulating innovative ideas and promoting initiatives for further development of THS.
  3. Business:
    • Supporting interdisciplinary collaboration for improved remote healthcare provision and outcomes.
    • Supporting service approaches that respond flexibly to the needs and choices of users
  4. Professional:
    • Advancing knowledge and skills in THS through dissemination of standards and good practice guidelines.
    • Advocating for ethical use of THS.
  • Download (pdf)
    International Code of Practice for Telehealth Services
    The ISfTeH Working Group on Standards and Accreditation for Telehealth Services would like to make this document available to telehealth service providers, for the benefit of service planning and quality assurance in service provision. This Code of Practice is a quality benchmark for digital health and care. It was developed by the Telehealth Quality Group (which included members of this current ISfTeH Working Group on Standards and Accreditation for Telehealth Services). Its antecedent "The European Code of Practice for Telehealth Services" was developed within the EU-funded TeleSCoPE project. To be successful, telehealth services need the trust of clinicians; health, social care and support practitioners; service users and both formal and informal carers. The International Code of Practice for Telehealth Services provides a quality benchmark against which telehealth services can be assessed and certified. In so doing, it provides a basis for that trust. The Code addresses health in both its clinical and well-being senses. It is positioned largely within a preventive and public health arena and is therefore very concerned with the benefits for service users as well as the way that services are provided. The ISfTeH Working Group on Standards and Accreditation for Telehealth Services will be happy to discuss the content of this document with telehealth service providers who are interested in knowing more, or with accreditation organisations who may wish to incorporate (parts of) this Code into their own accreditation or certification programs.
    2018-19-INTERNATIONAL-TELEHEALTH-CODE-OF-PRACTICE.pdf.pdf (1,378,388kb)

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