(Quebec) The Federation of Medical Specialists of Quebec (FMSQ) and the College of Physicians fear that the Legault government’s bill aimed at increasing access to data will cause the “deterioration” of the doctor-patient relationship.
The FMSQ and the College warn the Legault government of the perverse effects that the piece of legislation, in its current form, could have on the doctor-patient relationship and on professional secrecy. The two organizations are sounding the alarm in their respective briefs consulted by The Press and ask to tighten the guidelines governing the sharing and protection of patient data.
“It’s extremely intimate what a patient shares with a doctor”, illustrates the president of the FMSQ, Dr.r Vincent Oliva in interview. “It needs to be more framed. Examples are given of patients who have suffered sexual assault, abortion or extremely sensitive events. Do we want this information circulating on the pretext that we want to better manage the network? “, he laments.
The FMSQ assures us that the government’s objective of increasing the circulation of health data is “laudable”, but that Bill 3 does not put in place the necessary rules to ensure that patient data is protected. The Dr Oliva also points to the obsolescence of computer systems in the health network, recalling that there are still places where information is transmitted by fax.
“First, to manage this efficiently and confidentially, it requires a fairly complex IT architecture that we don’t currently have. It takes guidelines that people will respect. We are a bit in the stone age of IT in the health network,” he underlines. “We have to move forward, we agree, but the question we are asking is “for whom and why”, adds the Dr Olive.
In its brief, the Federation expressed concern “about the powers that the State has given itself in matters of health information, which appear to have no limits”. According to her, the principle that should guide the bill is accessible data for “the benefit of the patient”.
Access to data is an important part of Health Minister Christian Dubé’s Health Plan. It is the Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital, Éric Caire, who is piloting Bill 3, which essentially takes up the elements of Bill 19, tabled by Mr. Dubé during the last legislature. The legislative text died on the order paper last June.
A lack of balance
The FMSQ considers that the new legislative text “does not allow the maintenance of a healthy balance between the forces present” and calls “on the wisdom of parliamentarians” to identify the necessary guidelines. The Federation asks to provide in the bill a “general principle on the prevalence of professional secrecy” and to put a “special regime of application” for sensitive health information.
The College of Physicians of Quebec (CMQ) asks for its part that an article be added to the bill to indicate more specifically the provisions that would apply subject to professional secrecy. The professional order was not invited to participate in the consultations on Bill 3 and therefore sent a brief to the parliamentary committee.
The CMQ also deplores “the relative silence of the bill regarding the roles and responsibilities of professional orders”. He notes that “the provisions of the proposed text are superimposed on the standards enacted by the professional orders […] and are thus a source of confusion, inconsistencies and an additional administrative burden for health professionals”.
“This confusion is particularly worrying with regard to the protection granted to professional secrecy, which constitutes a fundamental pillar of the relationship of trust which must be established between a professional and a patient”, writes the College of Physicians in its memorandum.
Both the FMSQ and the College believe that the “guarantees of protection” are not sufficient to prevent health information from being “misappropriated” for commercial purposes.