Sharing medical data between hospitals

24 December 2019

Nexuzhealth is a medical partnership between a number of Flemish hospitals. Care providers in nexuzhealth hospitals share patients’ medical dossiers electronically. This ensures better care continuity as patients don’t have to relate their narrative time and again and it avoids examinations or errors being repeated as a result of missing information. In the interest of patients, hospitals are legally obliged to maintain patient dossiers that include as much information as possible.

 

 

 

 

Verpleegkundige bekijkt het elektronisch dossier van een patiënt

Only care providers directly involved in the care/treatment process have access to a medical dossier.

 

 

 

 

 

Strict access controls

Nexuzhealth hospitals, including UZ Leuven, maintain strict access controls in this respect. Only care providers directly involved in the care/treatment process have access to a medical dossier. The care provider’s position plays an important part in this process, e.g. whether they are a doctor, nurse or pharmacist. However, other elements also specifically determine who is, or isn’t, involved in the care process and consequently needs access to certain parts of a dossier at a specific time. 

Registration of each dossier consultation

Similar to any other hospital employee, anyone who consults a medical dossier is bound by professional confidentiality. Any consultation or change of a medical dossier is registered. This can result in a high number of registrations, but sometimes it relates to people who are only very briefly involved in a treatment process, e.g. the person who puts out a chemotherapy drug or the person who brings a patient from their room to the operating theatre. They are also registered but will only have access to a fraction of the medical dossier, which they require to fulfil their task. Data can consequently only be exchanged if there is an existing relationship of care or, in exceptional cases, if it involves a critical lifesaving situation.

When their nexuzhealth dossier is set up patients will be informed about the sharing of their health data. The ‘Consultation and Admission to Hospital’ brochure also provides information on your patient dossier and privacy. 

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Consultation and admission at UZ Leuven
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Last edit: 24 January 2020