Cover; Table of Contents; Executive Summary; 1. Introduction; 1.1 Is privacy a culturally dependant concept?; 1.2 Is respect for privacy important in the uptake of eHealth?; 1.3 Privacy or confidentiality of EHRs -- a note on terminology; 2. The ethical and legal aspects of privacy in health care: a literature review; 2.1 Privacy of health related information as an ethical concept; 2.2 The protection of privacy of health related information through law; 2.3 Binding international law on privacy of health related information; The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The European Convention on Human RightsEuropean Union Directive on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data; 2.4 International non-binding agreements; Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data; Council of Europe Recommendation No. R (97) 5 on the protection of medical data; WHO: A Declaration on the Promotion of Patients' Rights in Europe; 2.5 National law on privacy of health related information; Use of EHRs in Brazil; Legislative responses to EHRs in the USA
3. Analysis of survey results3.1. General privacy legislation; Results; Discussion; 3.2 EHR privacy legislation; Results; Discussion; 3.3 Legislation to regulate the sharing of health related data for patient care; Results; Discussion; 3.4 Legislation on patient access and the control of EHRs; Results; Discussion; 3.5 EHRs for research; Results; Discussion; 4. Conclusions; 4.1 Building trust; 4.2 Making data work: expanding the uses of EHRs; 5. References; 6. Appendix 1. Methodology of the second global survey on eHealth; Purpose; Survey implementation; Survey instrument; Survey development
Data CollectorPreparation to launch the survey; Survey; Limitations; Data processing; Response rate; Response rate by WHO region; Response rate by World Bank income group; References
Summary
Given that privacy of the doctor-patient relationship is at the heart of good health care and that theelectronic health record (EHR) is at the heart of good eHealth practice the question arises: Is privacylegislation at the heart of the EHR? The second global survey on eHealth conducted by the GlobalObservatory for eHealth (GOe) set out to answer that question by investigating the extent to which thelegal frameworks in the Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) address the need toprotect patient privacy in EHRs as health care systems move towards leveraging the power of EHRs tode
