1 Describe some of the circumstances in which confidential h

1) Describe some of the circumstances in which confidential health information can be disclosed without the patient\'s explicit consent

2) Who owns the physical medical record?

Solution

The circumstance under which we can disclose the confidential health information without patient\'s consent are as below:-

1. Patient cannot take medical decision himself due to trauma. Then Doctor can discuss health information with next of Kin so that he/she can take decision for the patient

2. Disclosures required by Government: Some diseases must be reported to government so that government can track the overall nations health. In this cases, only the data points requested by law or government needs to be oly discloses. Rest of the data needs to be still private.

3.Disclosures reuired by Law: If disclosure is warranted by law for criminal or other investigation of the patient or patient has filed a claim in court of law for compensation, then doctor can disclose the information for prosecution/defense as well as during cross-examination

4. Prevention of communicable diseases: The doctor can disclose those disesases which can spread to health workers who are involved with patient. This is allowed as this can warn the workers to take precaution and thus prevent the begenning of any epidemics.

5. If there is any violence (knife wound or gunshot) reported on admitted patient, doctor has to report the injury and the details arounf to it to the law enforcement. The patients consent is not needed.

In most of the states, Ownership of medical record is with physician and hospitals. In new Hampshire, the records are owned by patient as per law. Rest of the states, there is no specific law on the ownership.

For more details on states and respective ownership rights, please refer to

http://www.healthinfolaw.org/comparative-analysis/who-owns-medical-records-50-state-comparison