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Colombia's Resolucion 001644 de 2026 permits AI as a support tool in telemedicine only under human supervision, and repeals the 2019 telehealth rules
Most national telehealth rules ignore AI entirely. Colombia wrote it into the operative text, and the sentence it chose is a limit, not a permission.
Bottom line: Binding. This is an issued resolution, not a consultation or a guide. It repeals Resolucion 2654 de 2019 and sets a twelve-month transition for providers already registered to deliver telemedicine.
Who this affects: Physicians and other registered health professionals delivering telemedicine in Colombia, the health providers (IPS) that register those services in the REPS, and the EPS insurers that must pay for them.
Issue date: 31 July 2026, announced by the Ministry on 4 August 2026 in Boletin 113-2026. Providers with telemedicine services already registered have twelve months to conform.
What changed: Telehealth activities are separated from telemedicine as a registered service; four telemedicine categories are defined; prescribing is confined to three of them; and AI platforms are permitted as technological support under human supervision.
Analysis: The AI clause is drafted as a floor on human responsibility rather than as a product rule. It does not tell you which tools you may buy. It tells you that whichever tool you buy, the named clinician still owns the decision.
Primary sources: Ministerio de Salud, Boletin 113-2026 (ES)
- Instrument (EN)
- Resolution 001644 of 2026, establishing requirements and conditions for telehealth activities and the delivery of health services in the telemedicine modality
- Authority
- Ministerio de Salud y Proteccion Social
- Jurisdiction
- Colombia, Sistema General de Seguridad Social en Salud
- Status
- Issued; repeals Resolucion 2654 de 2019. The Ministry's bulletin does not state a vigencia date; the resolution's own effectiveness article was not read
- Bindingness
- Binding regulation
- Issue date / next deadline
- Issued 31 July 2026; twelve-month transition for providers with telemedicine services already registered
- Statutory anchors cited
- Ley 1419 de 2010, Ley 2294 de 2023, Sistema Unico de Habilitacion, and Resolucion 866 de 2021 for electronic health record interoperability
- Announcement
- Boletin 113-2026, 4 August 2026
- Primary source
- https://www.minsalud.gov.co/Comunicaciones/noticias/2026/Paginas/colombia-da-un-salto-historico-en-telesalud-y-telemedicina-el-ministerio-de-salud-expide-una-reglamentacion-mas-moderna.aspx
The clause that matters is one sentence long
The Ministry's own summary of the resolution lists the AI provision alongside prescribing rules and consent rules, not as a headline. On the Ministry's account, AI platforms are permitted as technological support in care, always under human supervision, and AI can never substitute clinical judgment, the autonomy of health personnel, or the doctor-patient relationship.
Read that as a scope statement. Nothing in the announcement conditions AI use on a certification, a registry entry, a risk classification, or a vendor assessment. What it does is refuse to let the presence of a tool move responsibility off the clinician who is registered to deliver the service.
That is a narrower instrument than an AI act, and in a clinical setting it is often the more consequential one. A liability question that would otherwise be argued from general principles now has a regulation to point at.
Telehealth and telemedicine are no longer the same regulatory object
The resolution draws a line the 2019 text left blurry. Teleorientacion, teleapoyo and teleeducacion are described as informational, educational and counselling activities that do not require habilitacion. Telemedicine proper is the delivery of a health service and must be registered with the Registro Especial de Prestadores de Servicios de Salud.
Four telemedicine categories are defined and regulated in detail: telexperticia, teleconcepto, teleconsulta and telemonitoreo. Each carries its own operating conditions, its own synchronous or asynchronous communication mode, its own physical resource requirements, and its own allocation of professional responsibility.
If you have been running a service under the older framework and calling the whole thing telemedicine, the classification exercise is the first piece of work, because the obligations attach to the category.
Prescribing is confined, and the signature is specified
Prescription of medicines may only occur in telexperticia, teleconsulta and teleconcepto. Telemonitoreo is not on that list.
The prescription must be issued by electronic, digital or digitised signature, which the Ministry describes as carrying full legal validity. For a clinician, that turns a workflow question into a compliance question: the signing method is now part of whether the prescription stands.
The rules built for rural delivery
The Ministry frames the whole instrument as a move away from a capital-city model. New operational figures appear: a referring service node, a reference service node, and a telemedicine link point (punto de enlace) designed for rural, dispersed or hard-to-reach communities. The link point does not require habilitacion but must meet minimum infrastructure and connectivity conditions.
Differential technical and connectivity criteria are available to municipalities with 20,000 inhabitants or fewer, to those in PDET and ZOMAC territories, to those under the Plan Nacional de Salud Rural, and to territories with a significant presence of ethnic communities. The Ministry states this is without sacrificing quality or safety of care.
There is also an intercultural provision recognising the participation of ancestral knowledge holders, facilitators and interpreters in care for ethnic communities, on principles of voluntariness, confidentiality and respect for peoples' autonomy.
Payment and records
Two obligations sit outside the clinical encounter. EPS insurers must guarantee their members timely access to telemedicine services covered by the Plan de Beneficios en Salud without imposing administrative or technological barriers, and may not disallow or refuse payment for services actually delivered and documented under this modality.
Every provider offering telemedicine must guarantee that its platforms interoperate with the electronic health record under the standards of Resolucion 866 de 2021. In practice the AI supervision rule and the interoperability rule work together: a decision a clinician owns has to be a decision that lands in the record.
What we did not verify
I opened the Ministry of Health's own announcement, Boletin 113-2026 dated 4 August 2026, which states the resolution number and the 31 July 2026 issue date and summarises its content. Every fact and the pull quote above come from that page.
I did not open the full text of Resolucion 001644 de 2026 in the Diario Oficial, and I did not open Resolucion 2654 de 2019, Ley 1419 de 2010, Ley 2294 de 2023 or Resolucion 866 de 2021.
So I will not characterise the exact wording of the AI article, its article number, any documentation or logging duty attached to AI use, or any penalty. The Ministry's summary is a summary. Before you rely on the AI clause in a clinical governance policy, read the article itself.
Colombia has done something narrow and useful: it put AI inside a clinical delivery regulation instead of a separate AI statute. The operative limit is that supervision stays human and clinical judgment stays with the registered professional. If you run telemedicine in Colombia, the twelve-month transition clock is the deadline that will actually bite, and category classification is the work that has to happen first.
Source File
Open the Ministry of Health bulletin linked above and confirm three things: the instrument is cited as Resolucion No. 001644 del 31 de julio de 2026, it is stated to repeal Resolucion 2654 de 2019, and the AI bullet says AI may never substitute clinical judgment, professional autonomy or the doctor-patient relationship.
La telesalud y la telemedicina no reemplazan la atencion presencial: la complementan y acercan la salud a quienes historicamente han estado mas lejos de ella. Ministerio de Salud y Proteccion Social, Boletin 113-2026, 4 August 2026
FAQ
Does Resolucion 1644 ban AI in Colombian telemedicine?
No. On the Ministry's account it permits AI platforms as technological support in care, subject to human supervision, and states that AI can never substitute clinical judgment, the autonomy of health personnel, or the doctor-patient relationship.
Is this binding, or is it guidance?
It is a binding resolution that has been issued. It is not a consultation or a discussion paper. It repeals and replaces Resolucion 2654 de 2019.
How long do existing telemedicine providers have?
Providers that already have telemedicine services registered have twelve months to conform to the new provisions, with technical support from the Ministry and priority for municipalities in special conditions.
Can a clinician prescribe in any telemedicine category?
No. Prescribing is confined to telexperticia, teleconsulta and teleconcepto, using an electronic, digital or digitised signature. Telemonitoreo is not among the categories listed for prescribing.
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