Some patients wanted access over his or her clinic/ hospital records (EHR or paper based). Others, want total control over it. The rising trend of sharing healthcare data in social media fueled fears of healthcare data privacy breaches. In this age of smartphones and social media, who owns healthcare data?

What constitute healthcare data? Who owns it? Who has complete control over healthcare data?

Let me describe first the two general types of health data:(Wikipedia)

A personal health record, or PHR, is a health record where health data and information related to the care of a patient is maintained by the patient.

An electronic health record (EHR), or electronic medical record (EMR), is a systematic collection of electronic health information about an individual patient or population

Patients have total control over their PHRs.  Although an EHR maybe co-created by both the HCP and patient, it generally resides and is maintained within an institution such as a clinic or hospital.

In countries with paper based systems of recording healthcare data, the same type of healthcare data “ownership” may be inferred. The patients have total control of their personal health record while the healthcare institution, over hospital/clinic records.

Some patients wanted access over his or her clinic/ hospital records (EHR or paper based). Others, want total control over it. The rising trend of sharing healthcare data in social media fueled fears of healthcare data privacy breaches.  In this age of smartphones and social media, who owns healthcare data?

Source: healthxph.net