Browsing by Author "Tervo, Markku"

Annually 200–300 people die in traffic in Finland. Despite the long-lasting traffic safety work having been successful, Finland has not reached the set goals for diminishing road causalities. The sharp increase of the number of aged drivers poses one of the key challenges in the future. This implies that more drivers will have diseases or other adverse conditions which often lead to fatal accidents, thus stressing the role of physicians as monitors of drive fitness. However, it appears that physicians do not always want to or can interfere their patient’s right to drive, which may partly be explained by the fact that the physicians do not know the patient’s earlier disease and medication history. The National Archive of Health Information which covers whole the country, simplifies the transfer of patient data across the health organizations. Being able to see the patient’s whole disease history at once, could therefore enable a more detailed assessment of his or her fitness to drive. Yet, due to the sensitive nature of patient data, the patient’s acceptance stands regularly as a prerequisite for the transfer. The main research question of the thesis is to examine, whether the strict regulation on transfer of patient data should be alleviated when monitoring fitness to drive. Practically this signifies, how the relation between the right to privacy and other road users’ safety should be balanced. The thesis explores the current legal state regarding the monitoring of fitness to drive and the transfer of patient data in Finland and elsewhere in the Nordic countries. Additionally de lege ferenda¬ aspects are reviewed. The de lege ferenda-oriented part includes also an empirical study on the frequency of neglects in monitoring fitness to drive, enriched by law and economics-based arguments. A freer transfer of patient data encounters inevitably constitutional problems of which the most critical ones are defining the exact limits of the heartland of privacy and finding sufficient heavy arguments for traffic safety. The thesis concludes that the limits of the heartland of privacy have not yet been crossed in the legislation relating to monitoring of fitness to drive, while when balancing the competing interests, the following rule should be obeyed: the more, and more violent, accidents that can be inhibited with as minor infringement of privacy as possible, the more justifiable it is to facilitate the transfer patient data. Based on the findings of the empirical part, it can be noted that a freer transfer of patient data could have a positive impact on the traffic safety. However, more accurate conclusions require further research in the fields of law and traffic medicine. On the other hand, the implications of freer transfer of patient data should also be studied from a broader perspective instead of limiting the examination solely to the monitoring of drive fitness.