Telemedicine and informed consent.

Though pursuing robotic technology offers a solution to geographically or economically isolated patients, it also causes new problems with regard to the safeguarding of patients' rights, including those relating to informed consent. Questions that need to be answered concern the content of the informed consent requirement; the form of the consent; whose responsibility is it to gain the consent, etc. In this paper we will discuss all these topics and take a closer look at international aspects, since telemedicine can also be performed across state boundaries.