Patient Privacy and the Media

Extract

“Whatsoever things I see or hear concerning the life of man, in any attendance on the sick or even apart therefrom which ought not be noised about, I will keep silent thereon, counting such things to be professional secrets.”

Hippocratic Oath

There can be no doubt that a tremendous amount of information is collected within the lifetime of all health care consumers, and today, people who are admitted to hospitals are seeking greater assurances that their relationship with the hospital and the physician is one of confidence and trust.

With the vast amount of personal information collected by hospitals and federal or state agencies, the effort to protect privacy has been gaining great momentum. Although Hippocrates attempted to address the issue within the ethical sphere of medicine, the legal right was first conceptually argued by U.S. Supreme Court Justices Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren in an 1890 HARVARD LAW REVIEW article. The so called “right to privacy,” while not found directly in the Constitution, has served as the basis for numerous privacy decisions by the high court since that time.