Legal Issues in E-Healthcare Systems - E-Healthcare Systems and Wireless Communications - page 26

their healthcare. It also helps to develop capacity
to process very large volumes of data for public
health surveillance quickly and efficiently to al-
low early detection of threats (e.g. flu outbreaks,
adverse drug reactions). In the process, there are
all relevant information about the patient that
is stored in the computer system of the medical
practitioner and other related parties for record
and reference purposes. However, storing such
information in the computer or system is not at
all secured due to the availability of technology
that may circumvent or get access to the said
information. This could be a threat to the privacy
and security of the patient. Regulatory compliance
and liability issues arising from the use of infor-
mation technologies and possibility of privacy
and other related violation in health care industry
should be given important consideration. That is
because the progression of e-health industry is
dependent upon and influenced by the rapidly
changing advances in law.
Major issues in adopting e-healthcare system
lie in patient privacy, trust, product liability and
negligence in handling medical data. These con-
cerns are affecting the adoption rate and usage
of these e-healthcare systems. Unless deliberate
efforts are taken to secure these systems from
design to implementation most of the development
achieved to date may not be realized and rolled
out to the real world. A 2006 survey found that
75% of the physicians agreed that e-health in US
could help to reduce errors while 70% of them
felt that it could help to increase productivity.
The survey further noted that implementation and
adoption of e-health are lacking in many countries
including USA and European countries due to
various barriers. One of such barriers is a lack
of legal protection on protection of privacy and
other liability issues (Anderson & Balas, 2006).
Thus this chapter of the topic will analyze four
legal issues of concern. The analysis will include
the legal framework adopted by European Union,
USA and UK where necessary. The four legal is-
sues are privacy, product liability, jurisdiction of

courts in e-health care disputes and professional
negligence. It is worth mentioning that e-health
encompasses e-commerce, e-marketing, and all
forms of medical services, decision support and
e-business intelligence in health care and the e-
home care application. Specific laws addressing all
the issues of health care system are not available
in many countries. So, it is common to see that
the offline laws and e-commerce laws are being
extended and interpreted by the courts and authors
to cover cases of common in nature. For example
European Union's Directive on Data Protection
can be extended to cover medical data too. This
chapter where necessary will analyse offline laws
and e-commerce laws which can be extended to
elaborate e-health issue.

PRIVACY PROTECTION IN
E-HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

Medical records are lifetime history of every
patient. Thus proper recording, keeping and
retrieving remain burdensome but necessary for
accurate medical assessment and clinical interven-
tions. Clear and quality records are also impor-
tant for better communications between medical
professionals, patients, care takers and other
relevant stakeholders. Various studies suggested
that privacy concern was an issue that requires
legal protection as technology could be used to
misuse health data with ease without cost. Data
of patients could be easily collected and used or
misused without their consent. The success of
the implementation of e-healthcare system to a
great extent depends on the availability of legal
protection. The term privacy is from the Latin
word “ privatus ” which means withdraw from
public life, and or to have seclusion from the
public (Raymond, 1978). Privacy is recognised
as a fundamental right in Article 12 of the United
Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights
1948 despite the fact that there is no single ac-
ceptable definition is available. Article 12 of the