The Malaysian Telehealth Flagship Application: a national approach to health data protection and utilisation and consumer rights
Telehealth refers to the integration of information, telecommunication, humanmachine interface technologies and health technologies to deliver health care, to promote the heath status of the people and to create health. The Malaysian Telehealth Application [Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress on Medical Informatics, 1998, p. 1282] will, on completion, provide every resident of the country an electronic Lifetime Health Record (LHR) and Lifetime Health Plan (LHP). He or she will also hold a smart card that will contain a subset of the data in the Lifetime Health Record. These will be the means by which Malaysians will receive seamless continuous quality care across a range of health facilities and health care providers, and by which Malaysias health goal of a nation of healthy individuals, families and communities is achieved. The challenges to security and privacy in providing access to an electronic Lifetime Health Record at private and government health facilities and to the electronic Lifetime Health Plan at homes of consumers require not only technical mechanisms but also national policies and practices addressing threats while facilitating access to health data during health encounters in different care settings. Organisational policies establish the goals that technical mechanisms serve. They should outline appropriate uses and access to information, create mechanisms for preventing and detecting violations, and set sanctions for violations. Some interesting innovations have been used to address these issues against the background of the launching of the multimedia supercorridor (MSC) in Malaysia.
malaysia data protection telemedicine confidentiality