A Survey on Current Status of Patient Information Privacy in Tehran's Hospitals

Patient- centered and perspective approach which prefers prevention to cure, to improve and promote the services and care, not only recognizes free flow of patient’s information, but also concurrently is concerned about maintaining security and privacy as an important feature of health care system. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the level of accessibility and privacy of medical record, rules, regulations, standards and functional procedures in hospitals of Tehran. In this descriptive and cross sectional study, the level of accessibility and privacy of medical record, rules, regulations, standards and functional procedures in all educational- noneducational and private hospitals of Tehran (including 120 hospitals affiliated with Tehran, Iran and Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences) was investigated. Research population was selected by census method. Required information has been provided using checklist that relevance with current status of patient information privacy. Obtained data analyzed by SPSS11 software. Finally, patient data privacy was expressed as a quantitative scale on which the range was from 0 - 100. Regarding the patient information confidentiality, 54% of educational public hospitals, 57% of non- educational public hospitals and 62% of private hospitals had appropriate status. In order to maintain the confidentiality of medical records and limit the levels of access to patient information, interventions such as making legislation to ensure confidentiality of medical records, determining clear rules about how to access patient medical records by an excellent reference in the country and announced it to all hospitals and health centers as a directive and determine the types of criminal offenses and civil cases for disclosure of patient medical records by a competent reference are recommended.