The General Data Protection Regulation (AVG) gives companies and healthcare institutions enough room to use healthcare data for other purposes, according to Medical Care Minister Bruins. Earlier, researchers and commercial parties had told Financieele Dagblad (FD) that "strict privacy rules" hinder medical research in the Netherlands.
However, Bruins sees it differently: "I support the development of secondary data use and algorithms because it can improve the quality of (personalized) care for patients. This is possible within the current frameworks of the AVG."
"Healthcare institutions that have data and like to handle it carefully, such as hospitals, say they are struggling with ambitions and risks. They have to interpret for themselves how permissible sharing of data is in light of the AVG. That issue will have to be assessed in each case by the responsible party itself and I cannot take it out of their hands," the minister said.
Bruins stressed that the AVG offers more leeway than healthcare institutions and companies are taking now. For example, researchers can work with anonymized data. Furthermore, the AVG has several processing grounds for processing non-anonymous (medical) data for scientific research. The European Commission will soon make available a manual for the implementation and interpretation of the AVG regarding secondary use of healthcare data.
Click here for Minister Bruins' letter to the House of Representatives on this topic.
This news item can also be found in the files AVG and Privacy in Healthcare
