Legal Analysis Of Several Problems On Electronic Medical Record

Since the 1980s, Electronic Medical Records have been used in the United States, the United Kingdom , Hong Kong as well as other countries and regions , which have played a positive role in the regulation of medical treatment, improvement of efficiency and reduction of cost of medical treatment. At present, the development of electronic medical records in China faces legal, technical and many other problems , which have hampered the superiority of their play. This article was taken to provide legal support for the healthy development of electronic medical records by the study of the legal status on electronic medical record,privacy protection of patients, security of electronic medical record, electronic signatures and other issues.Electronic medical record is a kind of electronic evidence, and there are different points of view on the legal status of electronic evidence as far as theories and judicial practice are concerned, such as audio-visual materials ,written evidence and mixed evidence etc .This article holds that in view of the nature and extension of electronic medical record it has its unique characteristics compared with other traditional evidences. It will limit the role of the electronic medical record and bring many obstacles if classified as a traditional evidence .So it is urgent to establish the evidence of electronic evidence as a separate form of legal status and formulate corresponding standards for the healthy development of electronic medical record.the protection of privacy for patients will bring new issues due to the application of electronic medical record ,which expand the scope of privacy, facing network hackers,viruses destruction and other new issues. This article states that it should clarify legal status of electronic medical records related to the protection of privacy legislation, strengthen the protection of privacy security technology , enhance the protection of medical personnel with the obligations of privacy concepts and improve the awareness of self-protection of patients in order to protect the instruction of the electronic medical record for hospitals .The security of electronic medical record is fundamental factors of system operation . In order to build secure electronic medical record system to protect data security, the following tasks are needed :To increase hardware investment of servers; to adopt two systems as security protection ,to improve remote safety storage technology and to provide firewall, anti-virus software as well. meanwhile it is necessary to accelerat the implementation of standards and laws and regulations on safety in order to safeguard the legal function of electronic medical recordsElectronic signatures have many positive functions including prevention of the deny of their electronic signatures and ensuration confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of the content of electronic medical records. It is urgent to strengthen the instruction of certification department and legal awareness of users through applications of electronic signatures and data encryption technology . It should ensure the consistence of electronic medical record with the legal requirements of data messages as a legitimate evidence to protection authenticity.