With Africa currently undergoing a digital revolution, the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recently signed a Cooperation Agreement in Geneva on the 27th of October 2017 to improve Digital Health services in Africa to help save lives and improve people’s health.

COCIR describes Digital Health as the application of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) across the whole range of functions that affect the health sector.

They further explain that “Digital Health”, “eHealth”, “healthcare IT”, “health ICTs” and “health informatics” are synonymous and that it includes tools for health authorities and professionals as well as personalised health systems for patients and citizens. Digital Health can, therefore, be said to cover the interaction between patients and health-service providers, provider-to-provider transmission of data, or peer-to-peer communications between patients and/or health professionals; it can also include health information networks, Electronic Patient Records, Telemedicine services, and personal wearable and portable communicable systems for assisting prevention, diagnosis, treatment, health monitoring and lifestyle management.

As development in the Digital Health sector in South Africa expands, there will be various legal issues presented to tech companies, investors, providers and startups including privacy of patient information under the POPI Act, fraud and patient safety under the Consumer Protection Act (CPA). While very public examples such as the genomics company 23andme show how quickly regulatory issues can derail a company, many more examples are found out in the early investment rounds that never reach the public. Many of the digital health investors are relatively new to the field and are learning fast. As their portfolio companies mature and hit regulatory and other legal roadblocks, they will quickly learn from their mistakes, making passing diligence rounds more and more difficult. Only the companies that do the legal work upfront will make it past the screening interviews.

Learn more about our digital health legal services
We offer various services relating to e-health and medical law both in South Africa and globally to all stakeholders including patients, healthcare providers, pharmaceutical, startup and tech companies.

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