Privacy policy for patients

In this data protection declaration for patients, we inform you about how and why we process personal data about you in connection with your treatment at Bethesda Hospital.

we will inform you about data processing in connection with our information activities or when booking appointments in separate data protection declarations:

• General privacy policy
• Privacy policy for appointment bookings

Bethesda Hospital is responsible for the data processing described in this privacy policy. If you have any questions or wish to exercise your rights as a data subject under data protection law, please contact us at datenschutz@bethesda-spital.notexisting@nodomain.comch or write to Bethesda Hospital, Management, Gellertstrasse 144, CH-4052 Basel.

In connection with your treatment at Bethesda Hospital, we process general personal data and health data.

General personal data

We process general personal data about you, e.g. name and contact details.

You provide us with general personal data (personal details, contact address) on the personal data forms for outpatient or inpatient admission. You also provide details of your general practitioner and your insurances. We can also retrieve some of this personal data (patient master data) directly from your insurance card or a database of your insurance company.

Health data

We process your health data. This includes information about your past or current state of health, treatment history and the utilisation and billing of healthcare services.

Health data (in the form of text, images, sound or video) is collected or created by our doctors or therapists during diagnosis, examination or treatment in hospital (which may also require the collection of biological material or genetic data).

We also receive health data from doctors who refer you to Bethesda Hospital or who have previously treated you, or we retrieve the health data from the electronic patient file.

We process your personal data primarily in order to provide, document and invoice our healthcare services professionally and in accordance with our contractual and legal obligations.

We also process your general personal data and, in some cases, health data for the following purposes:

• Making your hospital stay more pleasant (e.g. preferences regarding meals or visits during your hospital stay)
• Protection of your safety and the safety of other patients
• Education and training purposes (whereby we anonymise case histories for non-internal use)
• Evaluation and optimisation of our services (including patient satisfaction surveys)
• Fulfilment of legal obligations
• Enforcement of legal claims

The data processing described in this Privacy Policy in connection with the provision of our healthcare services is primarily subject to the provisions of the Information and Data Protection Act (IDG) of the Canton of Basel-Stadt. In addition (e.g. for the hotel industry or for our information activities), the Swiss Data Protection Act (DSG) applies.

The legal basis for the processing of your personal data within the scope of application of the IDG is our legal obligations and duties as a regulated hospital with a cantonal service mandate (in particular treatment obligations, fulfilment of documentation obligations and granting of patient rights in accordance with the Health Act of the Canton of Basel-Stadt, or billing and accountability obligations in accordance with the Health or Accident Insurance Act). In addition, we will ask you separately for your consent with regard to the data exchange with participating healthcare professionals and insurance companies described below.

We only store your personal data to the extent and for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this privacy policy or to comply with legal obligations.

In the interests of the integrity and confidentiality of personal data, we take appropriate technical and organisational measures. In particular, we implement access controls, access controls and procedures for regularly reviewing, assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of the measures in accordance with our risk assessment.

We pass on your general personal data and health data to the following categories of recipients:

to referring, treating or further treating doctors or other healthcare professionals and institutions involved in the treatment (e.g. pharmacies)

to your health, accident or supplementary insurance (insofar as this is necessary so that the insurance companies can check whether they will cover the costs and understand and check our invoices)

These data transfers are generally necessary so that we can provide, document and invoice our healthcare services professionally and in accordance with our contractual and legal obligations. In addition, we will ask you separately for your consent to this data transfer.

We also disclose your personal data to the following categories of recipients based on legal or contractual obligations, for the provision and billing of our healthcare services or in your recognisable interest:

• External service providers (e.g. laboratories and providers of information, examination or treatment technologies, whereby contract processors may not process the personal data for their own purposes)
• Relatives or your other visitors, unless you object to this
• Legal representatives, authorities and courts, if applicable

We only process your personal data in Switzerland and the EU.

You have the following rights in relation to personal data concerning you:

• The right to obtain information about what personal data we hold about you and how we process it
• The right to receive or transfer a copy of your personal data in a commonly used format
• The right to rectification of your personal data
• The right to erasure of your personal data
• The right to object to the processing of your personal data

Please note that legal requirements and exceptions apply to these rights. To the extent permitted by law, we may refuse your request to exercise these rights. You also have the right to request mediation by the data protection officer of the Canton of Basel-Stadt.

We may amend this privacy policy at any time, in particular if we change our data processing or if new legislation becomes applicable. The version provided at www.bethesda-spital.ch/ueber-uns/datenschutz applies.

Last update: April 2022