Use of telecommunication tools in non-interventional (in-vitro) research

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak posed major new challenges for almost all sectors, but especially for health and medicine: the control of the virus required the minimisation of human contacts and encounters, which was particularly important for health workers, whose protection was essential in this situation.

This situation has put medical researchers in a difficult position, as personal meetings between the researcher and the patient are an essential requirement for involvement in research, due to the regulations on information and patient involvement. In the current situation, the provisions designed to protect the individual have proved to be more of a hindrance to scientific research and, one might say, a restriction on the freedom of scientific research as declared in Article X of the Hungarian Fundamental Law. The present study examines the applicability of telecommunication tools as a possible solution to this problem.