Global Health Record Rights Index Reveals Lack of Patient Ownership
No country on Earth grants individuals full control over their own health records, according to a comprehensive new index from SuperTruth. Mapping rights across 198 territories, the study reveals that medical systems or governments retain primary authority in nearly every jurisdiction, leaving patients as secondary observers of their own medical data.
The Health Record Rights Index evaluates nations on a 100-point scale, measuring access, privacy, commercial protections, and AI-specific regulations. Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, and Sweden currently lead the global rankings, yet even these top performers score between 67 and 71, falling short of the index's maximum potential. With a global average score of just 39, the data highlights a systemic imbalance where health records circulate between providers and AI systems faster than individuals can verify or correct them.
In the United States, which ranks 55th with a score of 48, rights are heavily fragmented by geography. While federal law grants Americans access to their records, control over secondary usage remains inconsistent. The index identifies 39 unique combinations of health data rights across the 50 states and Washington, D.C., complicating efforts for patients to manage their own information. SuperTruth’s findings, which will be presented at the World Summit AI in Amsterdam on October 8, aim to provide researchers and developers with an open, cited framework to bridge these gaps and challenge data opacity.
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