The government is gearing up for a renewed push to introduce telemedicine as part of its campaign to boost the nation’s employment rate to 70 percent by 2017.

Telemedicine refers to the use of information-communications technologies for the delivery of clinical care. It can help people access medical services without having to travel for a face-to-face consultation with a doctor.

Yet the current Medical Service Act bans telemedicine except for the rare cases where a nurse stationed at a public health center in an isolated village seeks medical knowledge or technology from a remote doctor to treat her patients.

The ban is due largely to opposition from the medical community. Physicians are against remote medical treatment on the grounds that it will drive out neighborhood clinics and hospitals as patients would flock to large hospitals.

They are also concerned about the possibility of being held liable for medical accidents that are caused not by their own errors but by other factors beyond their control, such as equipment malfunctions.

Yet telemedicine is the way to go for the nation. It is widely practiced in advanced countries as it has been proven to improve the overall quality, safety and efficiency of the medical care delivery system.

And Korea stands to excel in this promising field as it is not only a powerhouse in information-communication technology but highly advanced in medical services.

Furthermore, telemedicine can be a big job creator. The Korea Health Industry Development Institute has forecast that allowing remote medical care would create by 2015 a new medical services market worth 2.4 trillion won a year and generate more than 30,000 new jobs.

For these reasons, the preceding Roh Moo-hyun and Lee Myung-bak governments attempted to lift the ban on telemedicine, only in vain. Whether or not the new government will succeed in its renewed attempt remains to be seen.

President Park Geun-hye has stressed on several occasions that Korea has no choice but to embrace telemedicine. For instance, presiding over the inaugural meeting of the National Economic Advisory Council on May 28, she asked the pundits to suggest ways to implement it.

Taking physicians’ opposition into account, the government plans to start with a pilot project in islands and remote provincial areas. At the same time, it will seek to introduce telemedicine in free economic zones and use them as test beds for new medical services.

This is a prudent approach. But to roll out new services around the country, it needs to address physicians’ concerns. At least, it needs to update the regulations on medical accidents to clarify where the responsibility lies when accidents occur in the process of practicing telemedicine.