#How GDPR Impacts the Healthcare Industry: Everything You Need To Know

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The healthcare sector, like many others, is now regulated by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It requires healthcare providers to keep personal, medical, and financial information safe and secure. The healthcare sector handles large amounts of patients’ data. It includes care homes, hospices, and home care services. Because of the volume of this data healthcare professionals handle, especially with the information about vulnerable individuals, these patients may not be able to provide consent, which is a critical component of the new regulations.

The GDPR impacts practically every industry, but the new rules in healthcare allow each patient more choice over the personal information gathered about them and how healthcare professionals utilize them.

Below, we’ll do a deep dive into everything you need to know about how GDPR affects the healthcare industry.

What Is GDPR?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) set up safeguards for people’s sensitive data security and privacy in the European Union (EU). It replaced the long-standing Data Protection Directive, as the data protection regulation standardized data privacy rules across the EU.

Under GDPR, healthcare falls under a particular category because of its rigorous protection compared to other types of personal data. For instance, healthcare organizations must know how and where their patient information is stored. As a result, personal information is safer, and patients have more access to and understanding of their data.

The GDPR has stiff penalties for anyone who violates it. These include fines of up to 20 million euros or 4% of annual global revenue, whichever is larger. Any firm that gathers or processes data from anyone in the EU must comply with GDPR.

5 Ways GDPR Impacts the Healthcare Industry

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) impacts the healthcare industry in several ways. Here are a few examples:

Safer Personal Data

GDPR requires healthcare organizations to understand better the methods used to acquire and store patient information. Of course, this transformation impacts digital data, but it also affects paper records, like patients’ insurance claims for hospice care.

Data breaches must be disclosed within 72 hours, according to the GDPR. Doing this will encourage healthcare professionals and organizations to improve their methods of safeguarding patients’ data. Also, the higher fines will undoubtedly serve as additional motivation.

Due to the new restrictions on the right to erasure, the right to information, and the right to object, many businesses are worried that the GDPR would significantly affect their capacity to communicate with consumers and prospects. However, the GDPR gives a fantastic chance to reestablish ties and foster trust between businesses, employees, and clients or patients, especially in light of recent hacks, data breaches from numerous household brands, and worries about how social media firms exploit our personal information.

Comprehensive Patient Profiles

The data footprint of a person is typically very fragmented, with information gathered at locations ranging from doctor’s offices to specialized healthcare organizations.

Making sure that there is information available about the objective and location of any data gathered is one of the fundamental elements of the GDPR. It implies that healthcare professionals will have a more thorough understanding of their patients, which could result in a better and more precise diagnosis and more specialized therapies that are less expensive.

Giving the Patients More Control

One aspect of our lives that has remained private and sensitive is healthcare. But test data are routinely shared extensively to achieve a diagnosis, with the patient having little understanding of how this information is collected, who has access to it and how it is stored. But under GDPR, patients have more control over their personal data.

Customers can stop how their data is being used if they change their minds about consent, thanks to some of the new data-subject rights, which give them more power over their information. Even when the client has no option, proving that you have carefully considered how you utilize data and have put proper protection in place can be helpful.

According to Lee Dentith, CEO and Founder of Now Healthcare Group, there is still work to be done. The foundation is there to offer the customer power, but how? How will people receive an education? How will this be made possible? The definition of GDPR is mostly complete, but there is no simple method to manage their data. In other words, the potential is there, but it is unclear how effective it will be.

Using Fresh Sources of Data

33% of patients who own or use linked care devices to track various health indicators have ever disclosed this information to their doctor, according to Future Health Index statistics. Additionally, according to FHI study, the healthcare sector is the one the public trusts the most with their personal information. Therefore, there is a solid base from which to integrate the collecting of health data into people’s lives.

Social networking technologies are being used more frequently by HCPs to provide patient care and support. HCPs frequently use SNS like WhatsApp to communicate patient information. It could indicate that sensitive data is kept outside the EU, violating GDPR requirements, as the information travels across the network.

However, the advancement of technology enables developers to create apps that deliver encrypted text messages from phone to phone before deleting the message from its servers after a certain amount of time.

GDPR Compliance Checklist

Healthcare services must adhere to a GDPR checklist to ensure compliance with the regulation. These checklists aid businesses comprehend what must be done to comply with the new rules. They also offer suggestions for how to approach particular circumstances.

Additionally, a GDPR compliance checklist mandates that businesses outline their data protection policies and make them widely accessible. As a result, they are able to clearly explain to customers what will happen to their data when they sign up for a service. If there is a problem with the data, it also alerts the authorities to their protocol.

Conclusion

Overall, the GDPR is a cause for excitement in the health sector. Relationships between healthcare professionals and the patients they treat have improved because of GDPR adoption, which has increased collaboration between clients and service providers. Patients may be sure that the data and information they give service providers is secure and protected. If they ever need to retrieve their information, they can do so without any difficulty.

by Regi Publico

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