Need to know; allowed to know – The health care professional and electronic confidentiality Available to Purchase

This paper deals with a problem relevant to the development and use of the Electronic Patient Record, and in particular looks forward to the time when such records are shared between large numbers of health carers. It asks questions concerning decision‐making about how much of the health care record an individual Health Care Practitioner of any stated specialism (notionally in the British National Health Service, but generally applicable) should be able to see of the record, in relation to his or her perceived need. The authors conclude that a Health Care Practitioner meeting the criteria for a Health Care Professional should largely determine the information he or she needs to allow the practice of good health care (“need‐to‐know”). On the other hand those whose work does not accord them Health Care Professional status should, where appropriate, be granted access to data by the Health Care Professionals for whom they work (“allowed‐to‐know”). Finally, it presents and briefly describes an object‐oriented model to illustrate the authors’ conclusions.