Selected legal- and subject areas
In order to provide better clarity with regard to the terms “medical law” and “health law,” a systematic classification of the two terms is made. While health law functions as an umbrella term for legal matters that concern the individual and collective legal asset of health, physician, medical and biomedical law focus on the treatment relationship between physicians and patients and the partivularities of the medical field.
However, it is important to emphasize that a purely formalistic classification of legal problems to traditionally defined legal speciality fields does not do justice to current legal issues in the field of public health. Instead, health and medical law should be viewed as a transdisciplinary subject, encompassing a variety of disciplines in both theory and practical application.
The complexity of health and medical law therefore requires a broad understanding of medical issues, economic contexts and ethical aspects. Legal expertise alone is often not sufficient to adequately resolve complex issues. Therefore, cooperation between lawyers, physicians, economists and ethicists is essential when drafting and interpreting the relevant laws in order to arrive at optimal solutions to health law issues.
Disclaimer: The swissmedlaw™ website and in particular the explanations under ‘selected areas of law and expertise’ are summary and no claim to completeness is made. They are for information purposes only and cannot be used in any way as binding legal advice or legal information vis-à-vis third parties without consultation and a client relationship with swissmedlaw™.
The treatment contract
The type of contract between doctor and patient influences the form of the doctor-patient relationship; i.e. who concludes a treatment contract with whom and about what.
Patients’ rights
Swiss law does not know a uniform treaties of patients’ rights, but specific individual laws explicitly state certain fundamental patient rights in various places.
Electronic Patient Records (EPR)
EPRs are a virtual collection of health and treatment records of a person, via which treatment-relevant data can be made accessible in specific cases. In Swizterland, EPRs are regulated by law since April 15, 2017.
Privacy and data protection
Current applicable Swiss health law only features isolated special data protection provisions that take precedence over general data protection law.
Healthinsurance- and social security law
Relevant for the legal treatment of public health are first and foremost the national general health insurance and the national disability insurance, regulated in the KVG, IVG and ATSG.
Liabilitiy of Physicians and care facitlities (e.g. hospitals)
Contractual and non-contractual liability of medical personnel and nursing facilities in the area of conflict between health and medical law.