France's Shared Medical Record takes shape

After the Law on the Modernisation of the Health System of 26 January 2016 changed the name of France's Personal Medical Record (Dossier médical personnel) to Shared Medical Record (SMR) (Dossier médical partagé) and brought it under the auspices of the National Health Insurance Fund for Employees (CNAMTS) earlier this year, Decree No 2016-914 of 4 July 2016 now specifies details for the practical application of the SMR.

The Decree sets out the conditions for the creation, access, management, closing and destruction of the SMR, as well as the rights of patients with respect to their SMR. The SMR will gradually be rolled out by the CNAMTS in the coming months and is expected to be fully effective by 2017.

The SMR consists of a digital file containing all medical records of a patient. These include, in particular, the patient's medical history (for example, vaccination status and prescribed treatments), emergency contact person and treating physician, as well as the list of healthcare professionals whom the patient has given or refused access to the SMR. Its creation is voluntary and is only possible upon prior consent of the patient. The objective behind the SMR is to encourage prevention, quality, continuity and coordination of patient care by providing healthcare professionals and institutions with access to patients' medical records, including data inserted by other healthcare professionals and institutions.

A prior version of this post was originally published by the same authors in Practical Law – Life Sciences, July 2016 Issue (Thomson Reuters).

This post was originally co-authored by Patricia Carmona Botana.