US Laws and Protection of E-Healthcare Information Discussion Post
The major difference between US law on protection of e-healthcare information and those of other countries consists in specificity. In the United States, there a separate piece of legislation addressing specifically the security of e-healthcare information, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and regulations promulgated pursuant it. In many other countries there are no laws that specifically address the security of e-healthcare information. Thus, there is no law that would focus on protection of e-healthcare information. Rather the security of such information is addressed by general laws such as the Data Protection Act 1998, Data Protection (Access Modification) (Health) Regulations 1989, the EU Data Protection Directive 1995 and so on (Shoniregun, Dube & Mtenzi, 2010). The same can be said about the UK and Australia. In the UK, the matters of the e-healthcare information security are covered by the general provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 (Shoniregun et al, 2010). In Australia, such protection of e-healthcare information may fall under the provisions of the Privacy Act 1988 (Shoniregun et al, 2010). Another difference is that the US law is more inclusive: it addresses issues of privacy and security of health information in a single act, while in some other countries such provisions are scattered in different pieces of legislation. For instance, in the UK disclosure of health care information is addressed by the Access to Health Records Act 1990 (Medical Protection, n.d.), while the general security issues are covered by the Data Protection Act 1998.
It is perhaps would be helpful to have a harmonized framework of healthcare data protection law because medical treatment increasingly becomes internationalized. For instance, a UK patient may seek medical treatment in the United States. However, because of the differences in healthcare information protection laws, his or her healthcare protection may enjoy a stronger protection in one jurisdiction than in another. These considerations may have an impact on the so called “medical tourism”: a patient may refuse to undergo medical treatment in another country because he is concerned that in that country e-healthcare information is meekly protected.
References:
Medical Protection (n.d.). Access to health records. Retrieved from http://www.medicalprotection.org/uk/resources/factsheets/england/england-factsheets/uk-eng-access-to-health-records
Shoniregun, C. A., Dube, K., & Mtenzi, F. (2010). Electronic healthcare information security (Vol. 53). Springer Science & Business …
