Medical confidentiality is the core element of any doctor-patient relationship and is actually applicable to all areas of medical law. It derives its source from the Hippocratic Oath which states “Whatsoever things I see or hear concerning the life of men, I will keep silence thereon, counting such things as sacred secrets”.
The UN Declaration of Geneva, 1994, recognised the concept of Confidentiality of Medical Records by imposing on all physicians the obligation to maintain confidentiality of records.
Modern day technology helps health and medical data of patients to be collected, accumulated, distributed and scrutinised in extraordinary quantities and put to miscellaneous and varied uses. This sophisticated clinical data management system brings with it momentous patient privacy and confidentiality issues which all medical practitioners are duty bound to recognize. Thus, computerized medical records and patient confidentiality has become an integrated part of any hospital management system.
Thus, it can be mentioned that confidentiality is one of the basic principles of medical practice.
