[Legal questions on medical registration]

Individual countries have traditionally reserved to their own competent national or regional authorities the responsibility for supervising medical practice and dealing with healthcare providers who fall below acceptable standards of care, competency or professional conduct. But the use of information and communication technologies to practice medicine across the borders of sovereign States will--just as e-commerce challenges the conventional regulation of trade--create new dangers and new challenges for the individuals and organisations that are responsible for supervising and regulating the practice of medicine. A workable scheme for co-operation between national competent authorities may therefore be required if both health professionals and patient-citizens are to be properly protected in an era of cross-border practice using telemedicine.