Safety of telehealth and digital health services is being neglected, says WHO Europe

Since the covid pandemic most countries in Europe (44) now have a national digital health strategy, but only a third (19) have outlined how new digital initiatives will be evaluated to ensure that they are safe and effective, a report from the World Health Organization Europe has found.1The report, launched at a two day gathering co-hosted by the Portuguese Ministry of Health in Porto, Portugal, found that while all 53 member states had legislation to safeguard the privacy of personal data, only 13 had strategies or policies to regulate private companies’ use of “big data”—large health datasets that can be used in research and development.Additionally, despite 30 countries introducing legislation to support telehealth during the covid pandemic, only 16 countries said that a telehealth service in their country had been evaluated. Worryingly, the report also found that only 27 countries had policies to improve digital health literacy, meaning that they…
Read Original Article: Safety of telehealth and digital health services is being neglected, says WHO Europe »