Amendment to the Regulation on Personal Health Data: What Should Healthcare Institutions Expect?

As digital systems become more widespread, health data is no longer merely a technical issue; it has become a matter directly connected to institutional governance and patient trust. For this reason, the updates to the regulation may require hospitals to review their processes, authorization structures, and staff awareness.

What do these amendments indicate?

Legislative updates rarely remain at the level of “the text has changed.” In practice, they convey a clear message to institutions: data access rules must be explicit, documented, and auditable. Within this framework, certain areas come to the forefront where institutions are expected to review their current practices.

Which areas are most likely to be affected in healthcare institutions?

Although each institution has its own structure, similar regulatory changes typically touch on the following areas:

1) Authorization and role management
Physicians, nurses, secretaries, patient registration staff, call center employees, IT teams… For each role, it should be clearly defined which types of data can be accessed.

2) Access logs and audit trails
Who accessed which record, and when? The answers to these questions should be traceable within the system and reportable when necessary.

3) Staff awareness and training
Rules should not remain on paper. Updating training programs becomes important to ensure that a “privacy reflex” is embedded in daily workflows.

4) Internal procedures and documentation
Information notices, data storage and sharing procedures, information security documents… These should be reviewed again to ensure alignment with the regulation.

Why is this important from a Healthcare Management perspective?

This issue sits at the very center of Healthcare Management. Because the matter is not only about “IT,” but also about:

Process management: authority, responsibility, and control points
Risk management: compliance risk, reputational risk, and trust risk
Quality management: standardization, traceability, and auditability
Patient experience: maintaining trust and transparency

In short, managing personal health data properly is as much a matter of good governance as it is of good clinical care.

This amendment reminds healthcare institutions that “data security” is not merely a technical topic, but a managerial responsibility. Regular reviews in areas such as authorization, traceability, and staff awareness can both strengthen regulatory compliance and protect patients’ trust in the institution. From a Healthcare Management perspective, this process can be seen as an important step toward sustainable quality and transparent governance in increasingly digitalized healthcare services.