[Electronic medical record, confidentiality and safeguarding of privacy]

An electronic patient file is expected to contribute to individual health care, as well as to policy goals. For acceptance by doctors and patients, some conditions have to be fulfilled. Among them is the appropriate specification of the right of the patient to medical secrecy and privacy. Reference is made to new legal requirements (Wet Bescherming Persoonsgegevens (Act on the protection of personal data)), which e.g. regulate when access to personal medical data is lawful, when consent is required and in what form, in addition to a number of other conditions. The current information and communication technology must not be allowed to dictate the possibilities and limitations of legally applicable standards, but the technical implementation of the electronic patient file must be made to suit and assure the legal standards of medical professional secrecy and patient privacy. Otherwise the advantages of an electronic patient file will be out-weighed by patients withholding important information from their physician and by their being less inclined to consent to their data being used for e.g. scientific investigations.