Abstract
The rapid development of digital health poses a critical challenge to the personal health data protection of patients. The European Union General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) works in this context; it was passed in April 2016 and came into force in May 2018 across the European Union. This study is the first attempt to test the effectiveness of this legal reform for personal health data protection. Using the difference-in-difference (DID) approach, this study empirically examines the policy influence of the GDPR on the financial performance of hospitals across the European Union. Results show that hospitals with the digital health service suffered from financial distress after the GDPR was published in 2016. This reveals that during the transition period (2016–2018), hospitals across the European Union indeed made costly adjustments to meet the requirements of personal health data protection introduced by this new regulation, and thus inevitably suffered a policy shock to their financial performance in the short term. The implementation of GDPR may have achieved preliminary success.
Highlights
Public health increasingly appears to be a science of information [1]
Based on the fact that much greater financial input than ever before is needed to meet the stricter requirements of data protection, a subsequent decline of financial performance will inevitably happen to hospitals that attach great importance to digital health services
Since hospitals do not emphasize the digital health business, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that urges greater financial input for stricter health data protection is more likely to impact the financial performance of hospitals that view the digital health service as the largest primary business except for traditional hospital services
Summary
Public health increasingly appears to be a science of information [1]. Having entered the digital health age, a growing number of hospitals and healthcare institutions are embracing information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support and advance their healthcare practices. It has become common practice to go online to search health information [2]. In this context, a wide range of e-health tools and services have emerged. Electronic health records are built to enable the communication of patient data between different healthcare professionals. Telemedicine improves access to medical services by using ICTs to provide physical and psychological treatment at a distance
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