Legal Responsibilities of Nursing Practitioners for Protecting Personal Information in Japan Compared to the United States of America

随着日本社会结构的巨大变化，医疗保健制度在过去几年里也进行了改革。2006年，《医疗法》推翻了以病人为中心、效率制度和病人安全指南。关于医疗的区域联盟是为了在医疗机构、医生、公共卫生护士、护理经理和出院后探访护士站的护理下为患者提供高质量的专业医疗。联盟已经协调了护士，因此他们必须征得患者的同意才能确保医疗信息的隐私。然而，目前还不清楚护理人员可以在何时、什么以及如何在同意的基础上获得这些医疗信息。为了解决这些问题，我们进行了案例分析，以确定哪些个人信息应该受到保护。另一方面，研究表明，护士一直在根据美国每个医疗机构的隐私政策获取个人信息并描述医疗记录。为了保护患者隐私，日本医疗机构必须根据《保护个人信息法》和厚生劳动省制定的指导方针制定政策。然后，在医疗机构工作的护士应该照例遵守这些指导方针。

Along with great changes in the Japanese social structure, the medical care system has been reformed over the past several years. In 2006, the Medical Act reversed the patient oriented, efficiency system and patient safety guidelines. The regional alliances concerning medical care was developed to provide high quality, specialized medical treatment for patients under the care of healthcare facilities, physicians, public health nurses, care managers, and visiting nurse stations after discharge from a Japanese hospital.Nurses have been coordinated for the alliance, so they must obtain patient consent to insure privacy of medical information. However, it is not clear when, what, and how the nursing staff can obtain this medical information based on the consent. To address these concerns, we performed case study analyses to identify what personal information should be protected.On the other hand, it was indicated that nurses have been obtaining personal information and describing medical records based on the privacy policy of each medical facility in the USA.In order to protect patient privacy, Japanese medical facilities have to establish policies based on the Protecting Personal Information Act and the guidelines stipulated by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Then nurses who work at the medical facility should routinely comply with these guidelines.