Abstract
In December 2001, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare issued a policy document titled "A Grand Design for the Promotion of Use of Information Technology in Health". The document describes a number of scenarios to be realized over a period of five years involving the provision and use of health services by means of information technology. Goals include the deployment of an electronic health record system to 60% of all hospitals with more than 400 beds.In order to promote such efforts, policies are needed to ensure the security of information and the protection of privacy. A law protecting personal information was passed in 2003 and came into effect in 2005. This paper discusses this law and examines its meaning, its significance, and its potential problems. The increased gathering and use of information in medical care environments does not always lead to more patient-centered care. Satisfaction with the gathering and protection of this information is important to patient outcome and may affect the ability of the physician and other medical staff to elicit patients' concerns, consider patients' psychosocial needs, and involve patients in treatment decision making, all of these being communication techniques that fall under the umbrella of "patient-centered" care.
