Telehealth is in the process of moving closer to conventional medical and nursing practices, making it a form of care like any other in the existing health care system.
In addition, recent legal reforms have clarified the professionals’ responsibilities and patients' rights.

Telehealth contributes to the development of coordinated care across multiple types of professionals. The initial and continuing education system is being built, and telehealth is now integrated into the national guidelines for CPD and the guidelines for the hospital civil service.

In 2018, as telemedicine was booming and its regulatory framework was evolving, the Agence du Numérique en Santé (French eHealth Agency, ANS) was tasked by the Ministry of Health's DGOS division to define a core functional reference base for the field, as part of the study it was conducting to support telemedicine deployment.

The telemedicine functional reference base describes all the features expected of telemedicine software, which are necessary or useful for carrying out the various stages of a teleconsultation or tele-expertise procedure.

The telemedicine functional reference base is said to be a "core” base, because its purpose is to provide a framework for the fundamental functions of telemedicine software, and to evolve with the regulations or framework, which are always mentioned in the base.

The purpose of the base is to guide any player who wishes to develop or acquire a teleconsultation or tele-expertise IS.