In the UK all clinics whether they’re private or NHS have to have a license from an organization called the HFEA which stands for the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, they’re a government organization and they’re the regulator of fertility centers and they work on a law based in the UK and the Human Fertilization and Embryology act which is an act of parliament which is quite different to what influences confidentiality outside of specific laws that govern this area. The UK is the most regulated country in the world when it comes to fertility treatment and everybody that has fertility treatment in the UK will be required to complete a consensus disclosure form which allows you to consent to who you would like the clinic to disclose information to and that can be nobody at all, it can be to the GP and often it’s helpful to let your GP know that you’re having treatment, can be to other health care professionals who might be involved in your treatment or pregnancy surrounding that or it can be to auditors as well. So there’s different options that you can choose and the clinic, if they’re bound by that by law to keep that information private. So, for example, in my clinic, I work in a big NHS hospital but only people in the fertility center can see fertility notes. If you try and look elsewhere in the hospital they won’t have access to that section of the patient’s record. So fertility is very tightly regulated and going back to the law, I think it’s one of the few things where if there is a breach of confidentiality, the ultimate thing that a clinic could be faced with is actually people could end up being sent to prison for it. So it’s taken very seriously, it can be a criminal act. I don’t think that’s ever happened but that kind of explains how serious confidentiality is and personal data is when having treatment at the fertility clinic.
Personal data is safe because from a legal point of view there is a law that obliges clinics to keep all the records in a safe way. From medical practice there is always an obligation to keep in secret everything that is known during practice of medicine. From an ethical, legal and moral point of view all personal data are kept safe.
Yes, completely . Not only because of confidentiality under the medical act but also the data protection law in Spain requires that your data is safe and secure. Therefore the patient can be quite calm to receive treatment with us.
The medical data of a patient has the highest level of as it involves the most sensitive aspects of patient information. The majority of the countries have a very strict framework. In the case of Europe and the USA, they have two different laws for data protection, GDPR for European countries and HIPAA for the USA. Usually, clinics, gamete banks, or companies like us have to respect and adhere to these regulations. Having this in mind, we have developed Fenomatch.
If you use tools that are not developed specifically for this field, it can be problematic. Also, it is not mandatory but highly desirable to be certified. We, as a tool, have been certified with ISO 27001 assuring that the information and the data that we have is encrypted and secure.
