eDevelopment Solutions can assist your organization in developing the safety and quality of your Virtual Care Services.

The ISO TC 215 Health Informatics Committee has developed a technical specification ISO/TS 13131-Health informatics — Telehealth services — Quality planning guidelines that can assist organisations improve the quality and sustainability of their Telehealth services.

Telehealth is the use of information and communications technologies to deliver healthcare and transmit health information over both long and short distances. Telehealth is a form of care provision that extends the reach of care, reduces the need for care recipient or client travel and mobility, supports choice in healthcare service delivery, preventative care, individual self-care and may also increase the efficiency of care.

Telehealth services may include telemedicine and mHealth services. Telehealth also includes ICT applications that support a wider set of activities including educational and administrative use.

ISO/TS 13131 describes quality requirements for telehealth services. It provides methods and examples to assist development of quality guidelines for Telehealth. Use of ISO/TS 13131 can assist quality management by a telehealth service provider, health or healthcare organization of telehealth processes. ISO/TS 13131 is based on the well known ISO 9000 family of quality standards and examines four key resources are used by telehealth services:

1. Organisations – telehealth service providers including acute, allied and community health providers
2. People – care recipients or clients
3. Facilities – physical environment, equipment and devices
4. Information – management of communications and applications