2021 LS&HC Horizons - Flipbook - Page 75
Life Sciences and Health Care Horizons 2021
75
Regulation of digital health
Discussions around the urgency in evolving
in the way in which health care services need
to be regulated and rendered have risen due
to the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology, AI,
non-traditional devices (e.g., wearable bands
and fitness devices) have become key elements
for the need to render distance health services
for improving health quality, cover more of
the population, and enhance and facilitate
diagnostics and treatments in Mexico.
Both private and public sectors engaged in the
rendering of health care services are currently
demanding a more comprehensive and clearer
legal framework that allows stakeholders to
work under more solid and well-structured
regulations that fit within the current health
needs and resources.
Both federal and state governments have
implemented provisional policies for
promoting the rendering of health care
services through electronic means due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. This has resulted into
an increasing number of legislative initiatives
Cecilia Stahlhut
Counsel, Mexico City
cecilia.stahlhut@hoganlovells.com
aimed to transitioning into a health legal
framework adequate to the current needs and
circumstances, towards fostering telehealth and
digital health technologies in Mexico.
Digital health and telemedicine are not
specifically regulated as such by the current
sanitary legal framework, but are subject
to compliance with the general principles
and requirements for rendering face-to-face
traditional health care services. We predict new
developments in the regulation of telehealth,
AI, alternative and innovative health solutions
and, in general, for the rendering of health care
services, diagnostics and treatments through
electronic means, are likely to come in the short
and midterm.
The use of new technologies is a trend that
private and public companies in the life sciences
and health care sector are eager to seize upon,
as they continue to advocate for a governmental
public policy change that better promotes digital
health and telemedicine in Mexico.
Héctor Mercado
Associate, Mexico City
hector.mercado@hoganlovells.com
