Supporting Preliminary Decisions on Patient Requests for Access to Health Records: An Integrated Ethical and Legal Framework

Patient access to their own health records is a legal right necessary to facilitate self-care however there are numerous laws and ethics that impact the extent and ease to which access is granted. A method and tool to accurately and efficiently guide guardians and patients in the initial assessment of requests for access to health records would be useful in promoting patient-centered care. This paper presents a framework and generic method that enables health record guardians to quickly and easily make preliminary assessments as to whether to grant or deny patients´ requests for access to their health information within the NZ laws, Health Information Privacy Code, and national and international codes of ethics. The evaluation conducted demonstrates that the prototype suggests almost the same case determination as those of the NZ Privacy Commissioner on a limited set of cases.