THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK GOVERNING HEALTHCARE INFORMATION SYSTEMS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN SMALL MACAO AND MAJOR JURISDICTIONS

Today, information systems are crucial for efficient, effective, and timely healthcare service delivery. Notwithstanding, they process sensitive healthcare-related and personal data and thus are subject to legal governance under local and sometimes international legal frameworks and so are the healthcare institutions and the staff developing and/or using the systems. This article identifies general legal regulation of healthcare information systems, privacy and security, and legal liabilities as the key perspectives of such legal governance and, from a healthcare information system developer’s and/or user’s viewpoint as opposed to a traditional comparative law researcher’s standpoint, examines each perspective of such legal governance under the legal frameworks of Macao in comparison to major jurisdictions like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong. Relevant statutes, regulations, and academic literature are analyzed to highlight key similarities and dissimilarities between the jurisdictions. Macao is underscored in this article with a view to exemplifying the legal regimes in typical small jurisdictions in respect of healthcare information systems. The analysis shows that Macao’s legal framework is still developing in this area, with relatively fewer specific laws governing healthcare information systems vis-à-vis the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong. The former jurisdiction’s framework in this area is also less prescriptively stringent and punitively more lenient than the latter jurisdictions’. Subject to confirmation by further research, in all likelihood, these phenomena are true of many small jurisdictions other than Macao in view of their limited populations and thus inadequate scale economies of and relevant court cases from the local healthcare industry to justify specialization of the law. However, Macao’s current legal framework at least provides a baseline of protection for the patients whose healthcare data resides in the local healthcare information systems. Managing the legal aspects of healthcare information systems will require continued legal developments in Macao or most other small jurisdictions alongside vigilant governance and administration of the systems.