On Friday, President Trump signed a bill reauthorizing the Food and Drug Administration’s user fee agreements for drugs and devices. 

The bill authorizes user fee agreements before they were set to expire in October. Interestingly, the bill also establishes several new approaches to the regulation of digital health and creates a digital health unit within the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH).

Advocates of digital health, telehealth, and telemedicine might worry about whether this change is positive or negative for medicine and for progress in digital health. Here’s our take…

The Food and Drug Administration was created to regulate, make safe, and (perhaps), facilitate the development of food and drug products in the United States.

Of course, in 2017, digital technology is every bit as important as biochemistry in contributing to our health and wellness. So the Food and Drug Administration is working to keep up with the new forms that “food and drugs” take — and how data and technology can contribute to or potentially endanger the nation’s health.

As digital science becomes increasingly important, it will need to be regulated. But, at this point “watchful waiting” is more important than regulation to allow the development of creative technologies. These changes probably mean little to you using iClickCare but we wanted to keep you abreast of the changing regulations in the field.  On the other hand, here will more control of the hardware and medical device side of telemedicine.

ClickCare is proud to be a leader during an exciting and innovative time. And ultimately, we are advocates for technology that is safe because it is in service to providers caring for their patients — like telemedicine for medical collaboration — not a circumvention of the way providers care for patients.

Tools, technology, and drugs are only as safe as the professionals using them. So we see our job as simple: use technology but get out of the way so that you and your colleagues can care for your patients.

Learn more about the most innovative form of medical collaboration (that is also the simplest) here:

Photo by Glen Alejandro on Unsplash