Context.-Recent discussions of health care privacy have prompted new concer
ns over the control of private health information after a patient's death.
The importance of confidentiality protections postmortem is compounded as g
enetic technologies and research capabilities advance and public interest i
n this information increases.
Objective.-The Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs of the American Medi
cal Association developed this report to guide physicians in the management
of patients' health information postmortem.
Participants.-This report was developed by the 9 physician members of the C
ouncil on Ethical and judicial Affairs with the assistance of staff from th
e Ethics Standards Group at the American Medical Association.
Evidence.-Literature searches in the MEDLINE and BIOETHICSLINE databases us
ing the search terms postmortem and health information qualified with confi
dentiality or privacy yielded a combined total of 129 references. Additiona
l references were culled from policies of a number of health care organizat
ions.
Consensus Process.-The Council on Ethical and judicial Affairs solicited su
ggestions from the federation of state medical and specialty societies befo
re drafting this report. A copy of the report was sent to the College of Am
erican Pathologists for comment. It was then adopted by a majority vote of
the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association.
Conclusions.-The report emphasizes the importance of maintaining confidenti
ality for information held within a deceased patient's medical record. Howe
ver, these protections are subject to certain exceptions. Confidentiality c
an be upheld when such information is used for educational or research purp
oses by removing individual identifiers. For disclosures in which the ident
ity of the deceased patient is known, a number of considerations are provid
ed to assess when disclosure would be ethically permissible.