The Ministry of Health is planning a revolution in our medical information - it will be possible to transfer medical information of patients between all health organizations.
However, officials in the health system fear that the measure will result in a violation of privacy and a significant financial expense that will eventually be passed on to the public.
The information will pass between hospitals, health insurance funds, milk drops, clinics in nursing homes and welfare institutions, MDA and more. All this, in contrast to the current situation where medical information is only found in the health insurance fund, or only in the hospital or with a specialist doctor. The memorandum of the law, called "Health Information Mobility", recently published for public comments.
Emergency room at a hospital.
Those photographed have nothing to do with the news, photo: Yehoshua Yosef
There are also advantages
The law has many benefits for the patients themselves: generating insights in real time for the purpose of improving the medical service, increasing the therapeutic continuum, providing innovative and advanced health services, expanding the exercise of rights based on medical conditions and an easier transition between health insurance funds.
The law will simplify and facilitate research and development procedures for the benefit of health funds, research institutes and the pharmaceutical industry.
However, a series of sources we spoke with warn that the law also has many loopholes related to the possibility that medical information will be transferred very easily to private companies ("any corporation registered in Israel"), without real sanctions if they violate our privacy.
The law is expected to allow a health body that receives our medical information with our consent to pass it on to another body, for example a business body or a research company, without specifying our name, but without the need for our further approval.
The law also allows us to use our medical information for legal proceedings.
Uncle Pepo, photo: Nissim Lev
The law deals with companies that will extract information of economic value from patients' medical information, but there is no compensation or reward mechanism for patients who have agreed to the use of their medical information.
The implementation of the law requires that all bodies dealing with health have advanced computer and information systems, but it is not clear from it who will finance the issue, for example in health and welfare institutions.
Also, there is a fear that the funds will "roll" the expenses on the patients through fees.
The Chairman of the Pharmacists' Association, Dodo Pepo, believes that the law is important, especially for those who take more than six medications, but states: "There are loopholes in the memorandum of the law that I expect to be addressed.
The pharmacies and pharmacists are not mentioned in the law and in my opinion this is a serious mistake, because we are defined as providers in the state health insurance law.
The law does not deal with the right to erasure - it is not possible for a patient who has given permission to transfer information, not to be able to regret it at a future point in time." We emphasize that the Ministry of Health denies the claim. Pepo also warns against leaking information to insurance companies, which according to the law are prohibited from receiving our medical information: "Although we have given limitations to the transfer of information, an appointed body can transfer the information to another body.
That is why there is a fear that the information can be passed to financial entities, and from there it can easily pass to insurance companies."
The Association for the Rights of the Patient is also troubled by the aspects concerning the privacy of information.
Naama Viner, the association's CEO, said: "The Association for Patient Rights congratulates the Ministry of Health for promoting the Data Mobility Law.
At the same time, it is important that the process is carried out while maintaining the privacy of the patients and the security of the information.
Medical information is personal and sensitive information, so care must be taken to secure the information.
Special care is required when it comes to information defined as highly confidential.
Today, stricter rules apply to its transfer, so this requires separate consideration in the bill as well."
Naama Viner, photo: Yael Tzur
Where will the budget come from?
The association is also concerned about the costs involved in implementing the law: "The implementation of the proposed law imposes many costs on the health system, and the state must cover these costs in order to ensure that the law will be implemented with all the necessary protection systems. Therefore, it must be ensured that the system will be budgeted as required so that the costs are not applied to Public health organizations, and certainly not about patients."
"The patients will decide"
The Ministry of Health responded: "This move makes it possible to take advantage of the information revolution, to significantly improve the manner in which health services are provided in Israel. The memorandum of the law includes the ability of the patients themselves to make a decision with whom to share the existing information about them.
"In order to implement the outline, one of the main things that will be emphasized is information security. Also, in the memorandum, the powers of the regulator are regulated so that it can deal with information security and privacy risks, determining technological measures that are required to be possessed as a condition for obtaining the license, performing periodic information security checks by the license holders, and are empowered to impose financial sanctions in case of violation of the provisions of the law.
"Each patient will be able to grant access permission for a period of time and to the information he chooses, for free, to those entities that will receive a license, and this is contrary to what exists today. Also, the law offers an additional route in which a patient can decide to share information that exists about him in order to participate in research, provided that the research has passed the approval of a committee Helsinki. In order to promote the move, the government plans to subsidize the costs of establishing the infrastructure required by the health organizations."
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