Invisible Patients? Patients’ Agency within the Discourse on Telemedicine

Patients’ Agency within the Discourse on Telemedicine

Abstract

A wide spectrum of telematics applications has emerged within the last few years, ranging from video consultations to health apps and infrastructures of telematics in surgeries. These are due to new possibilities within commercial initiatives as well as the statutory health insurance system. The discourse on challenges, possibilities and the acceptance of these developments formed in health communication in Germany is mainly guided by politics, doctors’ associations and health insurance providers. Based on a web crawling corpus compiling statements by these actors and parliamentary transcripts, I examine patients’ agency within the discourse on tele- medicine, focusing on discourse/practice-formations. In the arenas of politics and regulation, patients do not have a voice even though their interests are discussed. When patients’ organizations make statements, they miss further involvement. Even more, within the discourse arena of infrastructures and data security, patients become invisible. Although there is a lot of information addressing patients, in regard to changing treatment or new possibilities such as apps, their interests are captured by experts only, the agency of patients themselves is missing.