Del. Code 24, § 1702 : Professions And Occupations — Medical Practice Act — General Provisions — Definitions

  • Date:

Current through 2016 Legislative Session, Act 399

The following definitions apply to this chapter unless otherwise expressly stated or implied by the context.

(1) "Board" means the Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline.
(2) "Certificate to practice medicine" means the authorization awarded by the Board to a person who has been qualified to practice medicine in this State by meeting the requirements of this chapter.
(3) "Distant site" means a site at which a health care provider legally allowed to practice in the state is located while providing health care services by means of telemedicine.
(4) "Division" means the Division of Professional Regulation.
(5) "Executive Director" means the Executive Director of the Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline.
(6) "Healthcare institution" means a facility or agency licensed, certified, or otherwise authorized by law to provide, in the ordinary course of business, treatments, services, or procedures to maintain, diagnose, or otherwise affect a person's physical or mental condition.
(7) "Medical group" means 1 or more physicians or other health care practitioners who work together under the name of a professional corporation, a limited liability partnership, or other legal entity.
(8) "Medicine" means the science of restoring or preserving health and includes allopathic medicine and surgery, osteopathic medicine and surgery, and all the respective branches of the foregoing.
(9) "Originating site" means a site in Delaware at which a patient is located at the time health care services are provided to him or her by means of telemedicine, unless the term is otherwise defined with respect to the provision in which it is used; provided, however, notwithstanding any other provision of law, insurers and providers may agree to alternative siting arrangements deemed appropriate by the parties.
(10) "Practice of medicine" or "practice medicine" includes:
a. Advertising, holding out to the public, or representing in any manner that one is authorized to practice medicine in this State;
b. Offering or undertaking to prescribe, order, give, or administer any drug or medicine for the use of another person;
c. Offering or undertaking to prevent or to diagnose, correct, and/or treat in any manner or by any means, methods, or devices a disease, illness, pain, wound, fracture, infirmity, defect, or abnormal physical or mental condition of another person, including the management of pregnancy and parturition;
d. Offering or undertaking to perform a surgical operation upon another person;
e. Rendering a written or otherwise documented medical opinion concerning the diagnosis or treatment of a person or the actual rendering of treatment to a person within the State by a physician located outside the State as a result of transmission of the person's medical data by electronic or other means from within the State to the physician or to the physician's agent;
f. Rendering a determination of medical necessity or a decision affecting or modifying the diagnosis and/or treatment of a person;
g. Using the designation Doctor, Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Osteopathy, physician, surgeon, physician and surgeon, Dr., M.D., or D.O., or a similar designation, or any combination thereof, in the conduct of an occupation or profession pertaining to the prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of human disease or condition, unless the designation additionally contains the description of another branch of the healing arts for which one holds a valid license in the State.

For the purposes of this chapter, in order that the full resources of the State are available for the protection of persons using the services of physicians, the act of the practice of medicine occurs where a person is located at the time a physician practices medicine upon the person.

(11) "Registration" means the entry of a certificate to practice medicine into the records of the Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline pursuant to the regulations of the Board.
(12) "Store and forward transfer" means the transmission of a patient's medical information either to or from an originating site or to or from the provider at the distant site, but does not require the patient being present nor must it be in real time.
(13) "Substantially related" means the nature of criminal conduct for which a person was convicted has a direct bearing on the person's fitness or ability to perform 1 or more of the duties or responsibilities necessarily related to the practice of medicine, the work of a physician assistant, of the practice of respiratory care.
(14) "Unauthorized practice of medicine" means the practice of medicine as defined in paragraph (9) of this section by a person not authorized under this chapter to perform an act set forth in that subsection, unless excepted by § 1703 of this title.
(15) "Telehealth" means the use of information and communications technologies consisting of telephones, remote patient monitoring devices or other electronic means which support clinical health care, provider consultation, patient and professional health-related education, public health, health administration, and other services as described in regulation.
(16) "Telemedicine" means a form of telehealth which is the delivery of clinical health care services by means of real time two-way audio, visual, or other telecommunications or electronic communications, including the application of secure video conferencing or store and forward transfer technology to provide or support healthcare delivery, which facilitate the assessment, diagnosis, consultation, treatment, education, care management and self-management of a patient's health care by a health care provider practicing within his or her scope of practice as would be practiced in-person with a patient, legally allowed to practice in the state, while such patient is at an originating site and the health care provider is at a distant site.
Del. C. § 1702
Amended by Laws 2015, ch. 80,s 2, eff. 1/1/2016.
60 Del. Laws, c. 462, § 1; 61 Del. Laws, c. 68, §§ 2, 3; 62 Del. Laws, c. 90, §1; 62 Del. Laws, c. 112, §1; 63 Del. Laws, c. 62, §1; 65 Del. Laws, c. 490, §1; 67 Del. Laws, c. 5, §1; 67 Del. Laws, c. 434, §1; 68 Del. Laws, c. 147, §1; 68 Del. Laws, c. 152, §1; 69 Del. Laws, c. 355, §§1, 2, 6; 70 Del. Laws, c. 186, § 1; 71 Del. Laws, c. 283, § 1; 74 Del. Laws, c. 262, § 27; 75 Del. Laws, c. 141, § 1; 77 Del. Laws, c. 319, § 1.;
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