Internet of Healthcare: Opportunities and Legal Challenges in Internet of Things-Enabled Telehealth Ecosystems

Abstract

The COVID-19 public health crisis has accelerated the transformation of health systems to become more closely tied to citizens/patients and increasingly dependent on the provision and use of telehealth services. Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled telehealth systems (deployed in conjunction with AI systems) could facilitate the smart transformation of healthcare from a merely reactive system to a data-driven and person-centred system that provides remote health diagnosis, monitoring and treatment services, integrated real-time response solutions, as well as prospective insights. However, the realisation of these health-related benefits requires the processing of vast amounts of data concerning health. These operations and the use of new enabling technologies raises significant legal concerns and questions the applicability of existing/proposed legal concepts. For this reason, the research analyses the adequateness of EU privacy, data protection, data governance, AI governance and other regulatory rules in IoT-enabled (and AI-augmented) telehealth systems. In addition, the research aims to identify technical and organisational measures (best practices), which could facilitate the implementation of normative principles in these information systems in an effective manner.