The patient records in Europe: protecting privacy and rights

On 18 April, Europe will celebrate Patient' Rights Day. This day is dedicated to the importance of patients' rights and improving the quality of healthcare.

Patients' rights are enshrined in various European laws and treaties, such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights. These rights include the right to information about their health status and treatment, the right to consent to medical treatments and the right to privacy and confidentiality of their medical data.

The importance of patient records 

The aim of Patient Rights Day is to raise awareness about these rights and ensure that they are respected by health professionals and institutions. This is crucial to ensure that patients receive the best possible care and that their rights are respected.

Patient records are an important part of patients' rights. Content-wise, it is a collection of information about a patient's health status, the treatments he or she has undergone and other relevant medical information. This record is used by healthcare staff to get an accurate picture of the patient's health status and to provide the best treatment.

Awareness and cooperation between healthcare workers and patients 

One of the rights of patients is the right to privacy and confidentiality of their medical records. This means that healthcare professionals should only share patient records with other people involved in the patient's treatment. They must also ensure that the patient record is kept securely and that only authorised personnel can access the information.

Another important aspect of patient records is the right of patients to information about their own health status and treatment. Patients have the right to see their own patient records and to understand what they contain. Viewing the patient record helps patients make more informed decisions about their own health and treatment. It is up to healthcare staff to ensure that the record is complete, accurate and up-to-date so that the patient record continues to comply with patients' rights. In addition, involving patients in updating their own patient records and allowing them to correct any errors or inaccuracies is very important. In this way, health professionals and patients can work together to ensure that patient records remain a valuable tool for patient treatment and care.

Patient records therefore contain privacy-sensitive information. This privacy must be maintained at all times. For healthcare providers and healthcare institutions, but especially for the patients themselves. For the healthcare sector, we offer various solutions for storing medical records both digitally and physically. We also ensure that medical information is available in the right place at the right time and, if permitted and approved, is also destroyed in the context of minimising privacy-sensitive data. We work to the highest security standards. For example, we are certified for ISO 27001 (information security), NEN 7510 (information security in the healthcare sector) and ISO 9001 (quality management of processes). If you would like more information about how we at Archive-IT deal with information security in the healthcare sector please contact us.