My rights as a patient

1. There has been a misuse

According to Article 458 of the Criminal Code, the consultation of a document without authorization is liable to prosecution.

If you notice any unauthorized access to your health records, you can directly contact the health professional concerned and understand the reason for his access. If necessary, you can initiate legal proceedings.

If contacting the health professional seems difficult for you, speak directly to the hospital mediator where the doctor performs.

If it is a GP, contact the federal mediator.

2. My rights as a patient

NE PAS SUPPRIMER

1. You have the right to withdraw consent

At any moment you may withdraw your consent in the same way you gave it or by using this pdf form.

Only withdraw your consent if you no longer agree to securely and digitally file share your medical documents. In the case of withdrawal, all services related to consent would be deactivated. If you withdraw your consent, neither you nor any health professionals will have access to documents shared via the health networks. Please note that your GP can still receive your medical documents by other existing communication channels (mail, e-mail box, etc.)

You receive no official document when you unsubscribe.

2. You have the right to exclude a health care provider

For personal reasons you may decide to never give access to a specific care provider, even in an emergency. The ban will remain valid as long as you do not re-establish this right.

To do this, go to

“My Account”,
“access authorization”,
select “add an exclusion link”
and enter the name of the doctor that you want to exclude from your entire shared health records.

Health professionals excluded do not see any shared documents concerning you.

3. You have the right to modify the therapeutic relationship

The health professionals you consult create a therapeutic relationship with you via their software.

However, you can add them yourself by clicking on the button “Add access authorization.”

If you want to terminate an existing therapeutic relationship before the end of its expiry date, exclude the health professional.

From the moment you remove a therapeutic relationship, the health professional has no access to your data through the health networks

4. You have the right to check who accessed your data

All access to your data is monitored. Only health professional with a valid therapeutic relationship with you have access to your medical data. It is possible that you do not personally know these people: this is particularly the case when you are taken care of in hospital by a team.

In “access history” you can see which health professional has accessed your entire shared health record and when. If you want to see precisely what document was viewed, select the document and click on the link “Show monitoring”.

5. You have the right to hide specific information

The deletion of a medical document in your shared health folder is also known as dereferencing or deleting the referencing of this health document. The Brussels Health Network gives you the option of making a particular document or report inaccessible. You should obviously avail yourself of it with caution, however, especially if the content of the information has consequences for your care.

To remove the referencing of a document, click on the red cross to the right of the document you want to dereference.

The document is no longer accessible by health professionals who view your shared health records. This document still exists on the server of the institution that produced the document but cannot be searchable through health networks. If specified in the procedure, your GP can still receive the paper document by another communication channel.

6. You have the right to designate a person of trust

The trusted person is the person you designate to help you exercise your rights as a “patient”. This person cannot make decisions for you. He or she will only assist and advise you if necessary.

This person can be a family member, a friend, or any other person you choose to accompany you, for example, to obtain information on your state of health, consult your health file, etc.

The Brussels Health Network allows you to designate a trusted person of your choice.

To do this, the patient and trustworthy person must have registered their consent.

7- You have the right to read your health data shared by hospitals

Pursuant to the 10th action point of the federal e-health plan, patients can now access and read the contents of their medical records electronically.

As producers of health data, hospitals can activate the option in their medical software to allow the patient to access the content of the data they publish.

The settings of hospital medical software (DPI) can be used to adapt the access procedures (immediate, after a certain delay or no access) according to the different types of documents that are shared electronically on the health network.

Certain documents, particularly from hospitals, have a special status because they require the presence of an attending physician in order to reveal the content to the patient under optimal conditions.

These documents may have “releasable by the attending physician” status. Ask your doctor to release your documents as soon as they have told you the contents of your hospital report. He or she will have to do this manually for each document via his secure web portal.

The medical management of each healthcare institution decides about its own rules of publication and patient access. We can therefore imagine that some patients may experience a disparate situation at the outset depending on the decisions of the different institutions where they were treated.

Partners

The Brussels Health Network brings together all public and private Brussels hospitals as well as the French and Dutch speaking associations of general practitioners in Brussels (FAMGB and BHAK). We are the ideal partner for any project related to e-health in the Brussels region.