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Rights regarding the Medical File| FINLAND
| GENERAL OVERVIEW | BIOMEDICINE CONVENTION | EU MEMBER STATES | TYPES OF PATIENT RIGHTS LEGISLATION |
| 1. Health care professionals shall record in patient documents the information necessary for the arranging, planning, providing and monitoring of care and treatment for a patient. Health care units and health care professionals practicing their profession independently shall keep the patient documents as well as the samples containing biological materials that arise in the context of examinations and care and treatment for a patient, for investigating possible claims for compensation related to care, and for scientific research. Patient documents, samples and models shall be disposed of immediately after there are no grounds for keeping them. 2. Patients have the right to check the information concerning themselves contained in patient documents, and to rectify the information as necessary. 3. No access to a secret document - inter alia information on the state of health or handicap of a person, the medical care or treatment given to him/her - or its content shall be granted, unless specifically otherwise provided in this Act. When only a part of a document is secret, access shall be granted to the public part of the document if this is possible without disclosing the secret part. 4. Unless otherwise provided in an Act, an authority may, on a case-to-case basis, grant permission to gain access to a secret document for purposes of scientific research, statistical compilations or the preparation of official plans or studies, if it is obvious that access will not violate the interests protected by the secrecy provision. 5. Further provisions on the drawing up of patient documents and on keeping them and the samples and models referred to in paragraph 1, and on the periods of keeping them determined on the basis of their se shall be issued by a Decree of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. Patient documents, samples and models may be kept after the period prescribed by a Decree of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has expired, if that is necessary for arranging or providing care for a patient. The need for keeping them after the period prescribed by a Decree of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has expired shall be assessed at least at five years’ intervals, unless otherwise provided elsewhere in the law, or in the permission granted by the Data Protection Board as referred to in paragraph 2 of section 43 of the Personal Data File Act. Provisions on retention of documents on a permanent basis are laid down in the Archives Act (831/1994). |