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Hospital Consent for Disclosure of Medical Records

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Jon F. Merz ,
Pamela Sankar  and
Simon S. Yoo
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Extract

Physicians and other health care providers owe ethical and legal duties to patients to maintain the secrecy of the information learned during the course of patient care. This obligation is fulfilled by limiting access to such information to only those involved in the patient's care-that is, to those within the “circle of confidentiality.” As a general rule, providers may only disclose to others with the written prior consent of the patient. Exceptions may be “ethically and legally justified because of overriding social considerations,” when permitted or compelled by law. For example, eleven states permit providers to disclose identified records to approved researchers.’ Many states compel disclosure in cases where a patient threatens serious bodily harm to another; require reporting to health or law enforcement authorities of communicable diseases, gunshot or knife wounds, or child abuse; and mandate reporting of cancer or other health care cases to state registries (such as immunization, birth, and abortion).

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , Fall 1998 , pp. 241 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1998

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References

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