Medical records - Definition

Medical records refer to records, either in paper or electronic form, of the results of medical tests, diagnoses and treatments for individuals. Medical ethics dictate that revealing medical records for any purpose other than treatment is a violation of patient-physican confidentiality.

Legitimate purposes

• Efficient medical record keeping facilitates on-going and future medical treatment by recording which treatments have and which have not been effective, and the degree to which they have been effective as well as preventing harmful interactions attributable to different medical treatments.

Abuses

• The outsourcing of medical record transcription and storage has the potential to violate patient-physician confidentiality by possibly allowing unaccountable persons access to patient data.
• Medical records are being used to individually tailor interrogation through torture of prisoners from the War in Afghanistan being held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
• Governments have often refused to disclose medical records of military personnel who have been used as experimental subjects.

Sources

• "Government 'Breached Ex-Soldier's Human Rights'" Guardian. October 20th, 2004. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,11816,1331784,00.html)