Common use of Patient Rights regulatory / legislative framework Clause in Contracts

Patient Rights regulatory / legislative framework. Beyond the protection of personal data more generally, there is growing international consensus that users of health related services in particular have a fundamental right to privacy, to the confidentiality of their medical information, to consent to or to refuse treatment, and to be informed about relevant risk to them of medical procedures. Against this background, many countries have put in place dedicated legislation on patient rights with a view to providing legal and moral guidance to relevant actors. The rights guaranteed under such legislation vary in different jurisdictions, often depending upon prevailing cultural and social norms. Different models of the patient-physician relationship have been developed, and these have informed the particular rights to which patients are entitled. Although such provisions do not tend to be specifically geared towards the inherent properties of ICT-enabled service provision such as telecare, their basic principles would seem to be applicable to the latter as well.