title: Issues in the accessibility and confidentiality of patient records.
abstract: Traditional understandings of confidentiality are no longer sufficient to deal with the privacy issues raised by a modern health care system. Patient data are increasingly kept by large and relatively faceless institutions. Disclosure of health information is not an exception, but a matter of daily routine, not only for uses within the health care system itself, but also for various social purposes. This paper highlights a number of issues, related to these structural changes. A distinction is made between four main problem areas: basic issues, collection and keeping of data, patient access to records, disclosure of individually identifiable data. Under each heading, four issues are discussed.
mesh_terms: D003219:Confidentiality; D003625:Data Collection / Q000639:trends; D005568:Forms and Records Control; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent; D008499:Medical Records; D033283:Patient Access to Records; D010344:Patient Advocacy; D028701:Patient Rights; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D018570:Risk Assessment; D014342:Truth Disclosure