Corrigendum to “The administrative burden on physicians and technicians for organizing international telemedicine conferences: utility of a shared program management system in an international telemedicine network” [Heliyon Volume 8, Issue 11, November 2022, Article e11297]

In this article, the authors omitted a statement in their article regarding informed consent for this publication, which is required by the policies of the journal. The authors confirm that verbal informed consent was obtained from participants for this publication. The authors also omitted a statement regarding ethical approval for the research presented in this publication, which is required under the policies of the journal. The authors confirm that ethical approval was not required for this research and have provided a statement explaining this.

An ethical statement has been added to the declarations at the end of the article to explain that verbal informed consent was obtained and that ethical approval was not required.

The correct version of the ethical statement should be as below:

Ethical statement:

This research was determined by the secretariat of the Institutional Review Board for Clinical Research of Kyushu University as not applicable category of research requiring ethical review in accordance with Japanese clinical research regulation, “Ethical Guidelines for Medical and Biological Research Involving Human Subjects”. Furthermore, this research is not subject to the Japanese regulations on clinical trials for the legal approval of the manufacture and sale of pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

On the other hand, it does not also meet the definition of ‘Medical and Biological Research Involving Human Subjects' as prescribed in the above “Ethical Guidelines for Medical and Biological Research Involving Human Subjects”, which regulate ordinary observational research in Japan [1]. Nevertheless, we followed the principles of the Helsinki Declaration and took an attitude of respecting the self-determination of the subjects, although they were verbal informed consents. We also took thorough measures to protect personal information in conducting this research. Regarding verbal consent, we first sent an email to the program organizers who were the subjects of this research, asking them to use the system and cooperate in this research. Then we explained via online meeting that those who responded would be free to make their own decision as to whether or not to participate in this research. We also explained the med-hok under development and asked for cooperation in surveys and other activities to verify it in practice. We then sent an email survey to those who had verbally indicated their willingness to cooperate.

The authors apologize for the errors.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.