Ownership and Security of Patient Data: Legal Perspectives and Responsibilities
Laws Regarding the Ownership of Patient Data
From the point of view of the safety and integrity of patient data, ownership is an essential issue as it can affect approaches to security and access control. In various countries, understanding property claims regarding this information differs and largely depends on the law. For instance, the Data Protection Directive adopted in the European Union recognizes such a right for patients (Murphy, 2015).
The UK, in turn, considers citizens’ health details as government property (Murphy, 2015). In the United States, tangible records belong to the organization that created and collected them (McGuire et al., 2019). However, the situation with electronic records is more complicated, and the laws focus more on their management. As a result, the ownership issue is more uncertain, and opinions may differ.
The Influence of Ownership on Healthcare Information Access
Ownership may affect how information is handled and what security measures are utilized. US laws, such as HIPAA, regulate the use of data, and following them, patients do not have full rights since, in some situations, disclosure is necessary (Murphy, 2015). At the same time, healthcare workers collect and exploit health data in their work, while patients are eligible to access records and can control their transmission. Moreover, medical personnel must protect the data that people entrusted them. Given such circumstances, I am sure providers have more property rights over medical records, but with certain limitations.
Such a distribution of ownership rights for patient information has its advantages. For example, providers can effectively leverage data, share it during treatment, and coordinate storage and protection efforts. Rights over records support standardization and interoperability efforts for exchange and contribute to service quality. While there is a risk of data abuse, with a responsible approach by staff, it is preventable, and info will be more protected. Thus, providers have more ownership over health information, but the responsibility to patients and the obligation to protect them introduces restrictions that do not misuse.
References
McGuire, A. L., Roberts, J., Aas, S., & Evans, B. J. (2019). Who owns the data in a medical information commons?. The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 47(1), 62–69. Web.
Murphy, S.P. (2015). Healthcare information security and privacy. McGraw Hill.