Telemedicine in Jamaica: GLP-1 prescriptions, e-scripts and JS 359

Patients in Jamaica increasingly ask for a GLP-1 drug through a video call or a messaging app. The question for the physician is simple: what does Jamaican law and practice say about prescribing semaglutide or tirzepatide to someone you have only seen on a screen? The answer is a mix of a voluntary national standard, an Attorney General's opinion and a pharmacy law written long before video consultations, which we covered in our article on Jamaica's Pharmacy Act.

JS 359:2022, Jamaica's telemedicine standard

In February 2023 the Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ) launched JS 359:2022, the Jamaican Standard Specification for Telemedicine¹. The Jamaica Information Service reported that it "provides the framework through which telemedicine may be safely practised" and "enables registered medical and other health and allied practitioners to use telemedicine tools in their daily practice"¹. The BSJ's Executive Director, Dr Velton Gooden, said it addresses "the need to ensure the safety, quality, and reliability of healthcare being delivered remotely"¹.

The regional standards body CROSQ reported that the standard was developed by the BSJ's Medical Facilities Technical Committee, chaired by Professor Winston Davidson, and that it covers the provider-patient relationship, liability, clinical evaluation and treatment, consent, emergency referrals, medical records, privacy, "prescribing and reimbursement" and health education². It does not specify hardware, software, building infrastructure or information management systems². The Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce and Our Today carried the same scope³⁴. None of these reports says the standard is mandatory, and none details what it requires for prescriptions¹²³⁴.

What the Attorney General's Chambers said about e-prescriptions

In June 2022 the Ministry of Health and Wellness announced that it had sought the advice of the Attorney General's Chambers, which concluded that electronic transmission of prescriptions "is permitted in Jamaica under Regulation 20 of the Pharmacy Regulations"⁷. The Ministry added that this "can only be done with the patient's agreement" and "must adhere to the regulations of the Data Protection Act"⁷. Its conditions, as reported, included written and auditable patient consent, freedom for the patient to choose a pharmacy, the right to complete a partly filled prescription elsewhere, and a system that prevents the same prescription being dispensed twice on paper and digitally⁷. The Ministry also set up a small internal team to handle emerging issues⁷.

A 2024 legal analysis by Lynette Martins in the Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental and Innovation Law describes Jamaica as the first Caribbean country to draft legal standards for telemedicine and says the government "developed a legal framework to address the use of telemedicine" in early 2022⁸. A framework is not a statute, though: Jamaica still has no Telemedicine Act.

How Jamaica got here

Telemedicine is not new on the island. In 2016 Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton said he wanted to regularise it in local hospitals, noting "isolated cases of it locally in certain hospitals"⁶. A government pilot started in 2018, and more than 8,000 people sought care through telecommunication between March and May 2020, during COVID-19⁵. The Jamaica Information Service listed its main uses as non-emergency conditions such as colds, allergies, skin conditions, hypertension and mental health⁵. Obesity care with injectable peptides is a newer and harder case.

GLP-1 drugs by video: what the evidence shows

The evidence on remote prescribing of GLP-1 drugs is growing, but it is mostly uncontrolled and comes from the United States and Europe.

• A 24-week single-arm US study of 180 people in a telehealth obesity programme that combined semaglutide or tirzepatide with a virtual behavioural programme, wireless scales and blood pressure cuffs reported weight loss of 7.2% at 12 weeks and 12.3% at 24 weeks¹⁰. Participants were 91% female and 81% White¹⁰.
• A German direct-to-consumer platform study of 966 patients prescribed liraglutide after an online questionnaire and physician review found that 39.8% reported adverse events, mainly gastrointestinal, at 50 days¹¹.
• A UK digital service cohort of 106,653 adults prescribed tirzepatide or GLP-1 receptor agonists reported 21.5% weight loss in digitally engaged patients versus 17.0% in others over 11 months; only 5.7% met full engagement criteria¹².

WHO's December 2025 guideline places GLP-1 therapies inside "a comprehensive approach that includes healthy diets, regular physical activity and support from health professionals" and calls for "lifelong, person-centred care"⁹. That is a higher bar than a single video call.

Telemedicine is not online shopping

The risk physicians see in Jamaica is less often a careful video consultation and more often a patient who skipped the physician entirely. A study that test-purchased semaglutide from illegal online pharmacies found 134 search-result links leading to 59 illegal online pharmacy websites; three vials were delivered, none of the ordered Ozempic pens arrived, the semaglutide purity measured 7.7% to 14.37%, and endotoxin was found in every sample¹³. WHO says demand "has fueled the spread of falsified and substandard products"⁹. In the United States, the FDA has received adverse event reports, some needing hospitalisation, that may be related to dosing errors with compounded injectable semaglutide¹⁴.

Practical points for Jamaican physicians

• JS 359:2022 is the national reference for remote care; its scope includes consent, records, emergency referral and prescribing².
• An electronically transmitted prescription needs the patient's agreement and must respect the Data Protection Act, according to the Ministry's 2022 statement⁷.
• Weight, blood pressure, side effects and follow-up can be done remotely in the programmes studied, but those programmes built in structured behavioural support and devices¹⁰¹².
• When a patient reports a GLP-1 product bought online, the purity and sterility findings from test purchases¹³ are a reason to ask where it came from and to record the batch.