There are many cities or towns in Alberta that fall under tier 2 and tier 3 categories. In these cities, there is limited access to healthcare services as compared to other cities of Ontario and B.C. Additionally, there are many remote towns in Alberta. Residents of these remote towns have to travel far to get access to quality healthcare services. A telemedicine app that lets patients talk to doctors within minutes is a very convenient way of seeking healthcare services for people living in small remote towns. 

Imposed by the Alberta state government as a privacy act, PIPA (Personal Information Protection Act) applies to private healthcare organizations and startups that collect, use, and disclose personal health information. 

If you are a public entity such as a hospital, the FOIP (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy)  does apply to you. 

There is one more law called HIA (Health Information Act) imposed dedicatedly to govern data in the healthcare industry. 

The government-funded AHCIP is available in Alberta. Like Ontario and B.C., the AHCIP in Alberta does cover televisits. Meaning, the government pays the televisit fee on behalf of patients.

The operating cost includes app maintenance, APIs fees, customer service, ongoing marketing and staffing cost.

You can ask users to pay per visit with an additional fee for follow-ups.
You can ask them to pay a bit more for televisits after midnight, on weekends and on national holidays. 
You can also introduce a subscription or membership plan for regular users. 
You can also tie-up with employers to provide televisit coverage to their employees. 

With your custom branding, we will deliver the app within a week. If you ask for extra features, we will take a few more days to implement custom changes in the app and test it before delivering it.

That’s the major drawback of PIPA. It only asks entities to safeguard PHI but does not suggest the ways to safeguard PHI.  Thus, it is up to you if you want to encrypt the PHI. But you must secure the PHI of patients anyhow and there is no better way than encryption.

PIPA does not ask you to have a signed contract between you and IT service providers.

Telemedicine is the subset of telehealth. Unlike telemedicine which is only used to provide online healthcare services, telehealth also includes many non-clinical uses.