A Study on Medical Information Privacy Protection Law and Regulation in the Information Age

정보화시대의 환자진료정보 보호에 관한 법.제도적 고찰

This study discusses the direction of legislation to strengthen the legal protection of medical records privacy in information age. The legislation trends on privacy protection of medical records in European Union and United States are analysed and the current law and regulation of Korea on medical records are compared. The issues discussed include the ownership of medical records, the patient's right of access to medical records, medical information publication for other than treatment or insurance processing use, confidentiality responsibility of provider organizations, medical information management in provider organizations, penalty for the unlawful use of patient information. This study concludes that the patients' right on medical record and provider organization's responsibility in processing patient information should be strengthened in order to protect patients' privacy and to conform to the international standard on medical record protection in the information age.