2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-FOUR - Health and Sanitation (§§ 1 — 15010) › PART VII - Hospitals, Institutions and Health Programs (§§ 3001 — 3891) › Chapter 132A - Cancer Patients and Survivors’ Bill of Rights (§§ 3071 — 3080) › § 3071 - Definitions

For purposes of this chapter, the following terms shall have the meaning stated below:
(a) Insurer.— Means any entity engaged in the business of entering into insurance contracts, as defined in the Puerto Rico Insurance Code.
(b) Early detection.— Means preventive cancer screening in a determined and asymptomatic population for purposes of reducing the mortality rate associated therewith.
(c) Early diagnosis.— Means the process to identify and assess results, once a lump or other cancer sign or symptom is found in a stage preceding the appearance of symptoms or when symptoms are barely noticed by the patient, which increases a patient’s probability of being cured.
(d) Catastrophic illness.— Means any pathology that, from a clinical standpoint, involves technical difficulties in is resolution, high risks during recovery, and some probability of death.
(e) Clinical trial.— Means those research studies that can determine whether new treatments work for people. Each study answers scientific questions and tests new ways to prevent, explore, diagnose, or treat a disease. Clinical trials may also compare new treatments with existing ones. Each clinical trial follows a protocol or action plan. The plan describes what will be done during trial, how to do it, and why each phase of the trial is necessary. Each study has its own rules as to who may participate. Some require volunteers with a certain disease. Some need healthy persons. Others only require either men or women.
(f) Institutional Review Board or IRB.— Means the independent body that, by virtue of the U.S. Code Title 45, § 46, has been designated to approve, monitor, review, ensure, and protect the rights and welfare of all research subjects. The IRB is responsible for ensuring compliance with the basic policy of the Department of Health and of every institution engaged in research for the protection of human research subjects.
(g) Prevention.— Means the measures or actions taken beforehand in order to prevent illness.
(h) Reasonable probability of being malignant.— Means a lesion with a high probability of being cancer.
(i) Health service providers.— Means any physician, hospital, primary care center, diagnosis and treatment center, dentist, laboratory, pharmacy, prehospital emergency care, or any other person authorized to provide healthcare services in Puerto Rico that renders health services to subscribers or beneficiaries of a healthcare plan or health insurance, whether or not under contract with an insurer or health service organization.
(j) Remission.— Means that the medical signs and symptoms of a disease have disappeared at least temporarily. Cancer patients are usually in remission for not less than ten years before it can be said that they are cured and depending on the type of cancer, such remission period may be longer.
(k) Patient navigation system.— Means those systems created to bridge existing gaps between cancer patients and the healthcare system. It aims to increase access to healthcare by breaking patient-specialist communication, the healthcare system, and financial barriers.
(l) Cancer survivor.— Means any individual from the time of cancer diagnosis; family members, friends, and caregivers are also considered part of the survivorship experience. (United States National Cancer Institute).
(m) Assisted suicide.— Means the deliberate administration of a lethal dose of pain medication, or any other method employed with the intent of hastening or causing the death of a patient.
(n) Complementary treatment.— Means the use complimentary interventions in concert with conventional treatments, considering the use of alternative interventions in place of conventional medicine. (Barnes, Bloom, & Nahim, 2008).
(o) Preferential turn.— Shall be the turn assigned to any cancer patient or survivor in outpatient treatment who resides in the Island Municipalities of Vieques and Culebra, and who must return to such Island by air or sea on the same day.
History —Sept. 27, 2012, No. 275, § 2, eff. 180 days after Sept. 27, 2012.