Electronic Healthcare Records: Indian vs. International Perspective on Standards and Privacy

Patient data is very valuable and must be protected from misuse by the third parties. Also, the rights of patient like privacy, confidentiality of medical information, information about possible risks of medical treatment, to consent or refuse a treatment are very much important. Individuals should have the right to access their health records and get these deleted from hospital records after completing the treatment. Traditional ways of keeping paper-based health records are being replaced by electronic health records as they increase portability and accessibility to medical records. Governments and hospitals across the world and putting huge efforts to implement the electronic health records. The present work explores the different aspects of health privacy and health records. Most important stakeholders, technological and legal aspects have been presented from both the Indian and international perspectives. A comparative analysis has been presented for the available EHR standards with a focus on their roles and implementation challenges.