COVID-19: complications with consent and confidentiality for dental practices: How can dental practices work with patients remotely?

摘要

Telemedicine has revolutionised the world in that remote access to the provision of patient care has been made possible. This has proved to be exceptionally useful during the COVID-19 pandemic but while telemedicine is benefitting those with medical problems, teledentistry is still slow to be implemented, with most clinics not having the software in their practices that allow this, and also no safe and official portals of communication between staff regarding patient care away from the dental practice. Our dental colleagues are having to undertake consultations with patients through non-secure means such as Zoom, WhatsApp or FaceTime and have no remote access to patient notes to document these conversations. This poses a breach to patient confidentiality. Nevertheless, owing to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, there is a growing need to converse with patients (and discuss their welfare between colleagues) away from the dental practice. On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The general response to the crisis has reinforced measures focused on social distancing and quarantining, with an increasing need for patients to access medical care remotely. Since coming out of the first national lockdown (which led to extreme restrictions in accessing medical and dental services), it has been imperative that we recognise the shortcomings faced when having to practise remotely. The information age has promoted the use of tele-medicine -the ability of healthcare professionals to interact directly with patients remotely. Amid the current global pandemic, telemedicine has evolved to be one of the main sources of communication between doctors and patients, and is now a necessary means of delivering healthcare. It has enabled healthcare to be moved from the clinic to the home, similar to how many people now access their banking, without the need for travel to a physical bank to conduct business.