Right to Information about Patient’s Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the possibility of realizing individual patient rights. Limited contact with medical staff, resulting from the ban on visits in the hospitals or providing health services in the form of an online doctor consultation significantly hindered the provision of information about the patient’s health to authorized persons. In the current legal status, however, there are no provisions that would regulate the principles of providing medical information by means of remote communication. Meanwhile, this is a very important problem in light of the need to provide sensitive data to people whose identity is extremely difficult to establish, for example during a telephone conversation. Medical professionals are bound by professional secrecy and must exercise particular caution when communicating information about the patient’s health condition. In the absence of generally applicable provisions in this regard, the Guidelines on the implementation of the right to remote information about the patient’s health by the authorized persons developed by the Patient Ombudsman and the President of the Personal Data Protection Office are very useful.