Necessity of implementing electronic personal health information privacy regulation in Dominican Republic

The use of technology has increased considerably in the Dominican Republic in the past years. All public and private organizations have started a process of digitize all information they manage. The health area is not away from this process and hence they have started to use personal health records in a digital format. However, the management given to this information is not regulated by any law in the DR. Doctors, medical centers, health assurance companies and patients treat this data as they want without any control which represents a huge privacy risk for patients in the country.;During our investigation we looked into Dominican law. For conducting this study we were advised by qualified attorneys in order to find a regulation regarding this topic. We conducted three interviews to lawyers where we asked them about their experience and existent legislation related to electronic PHR. According to the information we gathered, no regulation with this topic was encountered. Only several chapters referring to intrusions attacks and other about professional secret was found in the law. However, we did not locate any statement which strictly specifies procedures for electronic PHR information management.;We also interviewed three medical professionals and asked them some questions about the management of the electronic personal health records in the Dominican Republic. They talked about their experience and the different mechanisms for manipulating, archiving and disclosing information contained in the ePHR. According to their opinions, we found that every health care institution has their own security policy which is not supervised by the government which demonstrates the absence of a legal regulation in this area. We subsequently explained the importance of having a law which regulates information disclosure regarding this topic.;This paper also includes a suggestion about the topics that should be included in the electronic PHR regulation in the Dominican Republic. Health care centers, patients and health employees has their own responsibility in the management of this data which is presented in this research, as well as the type of information that is considered critical and hence should be protected by the regulation.