Digital Health 101 - Use Of Medical Data

• Published date: 18 January 2021
• Subject Matter: Food, Drugs, Healthcare, Life Sciences, Privacy, Data Protection, Privacy Protection, Food and Drugs Law
• Law Firm: Yigal Arnon & Co
• Author: Ms Tamar Tavory

Medical information accumulated during therapeutic treatment over the years can have a tremendous impact on medical progress and treatment. Medical companies are using these data to develop advanced technological means to identify at-risk patients even prior to the outburst of an illness, adjust drug dosage to patients' characteristics, develop medical research more rapidly and efficiently, and derive medical insights and conclusions that could not have been reached by human thinking.

Naturally, this activity raises questions: who owns the medical information in the HMOs' and hospitals' data base? Can a researcher access these data bases and how? And how may we ensure that medical and scientific progress does not infringe on patients' privacy?

Questions arise especially when a company seeks access to medical data accrued in a medical institution for the purpose of developing their product. This post will address these questions according to Israel's regulatory regime.

Who Owns Medical Data?

This is a worthy question for which there is no unequivocal legal answer. Israeli legislation refers to the patients' rights, such as the right to privacy of his medical data and his right to receive a copy of it. The legislation also requires receiving the patients' consent for transferring his medical data, but also acknowledges cases in which it is not required. The digital medical data base belongs to the medical institution, which is also responsible, regulatory-wise, for protection of the stored data therein (According to the Privacy Protection Law and regulations deriving thereof).

In today's situation, the patients do not benefit from any part of the profit gained by their medical institution or the company using the data about themselves, but of course they do benefit from the fact that the profits revert to the medical institution to improve the medical care for the patients.

Patient's Right to Privacy of His Medical Information

The right to privacy is a constitutional right according to the Basic Law of Human Dignity and Liberty. Moreover, medical information ensuing from an encounter between a healthcare provider and a patient is subject to the duty of medical confidentiality, according to the Patient's Rights Act. To obtain access to a patient's medical information, a legal exception to the duty of medical confidentiality must be demonstrated. The two potential exceptions in this case are: first, patient's consent to share medical information; second, the...