In the UMCG, we place great value on privacy. We see it as our duty to protect the data of our patients as much as possible, that is part of our daily work. If you are a patient of ours (or if your child is a patient of ours), we will process personal data about you (or your child).
But also if you participate in scientific research, are the contact person of a patient or if you visit our website, we process personal data. What this means exactly, why we do this and what your rights are, can be read below. Do you have any questions about your privacy at the UMCG? Please contact the Data Protection Officers Piet Dinjens and Boudien Sieperda. The Data Protection Officers can be reached through privacy@umcg.nl. Are you dissatisfied with how we handled your privacy? You can submit a complaint to the privacy supervisor, the Dutch Authority for the Protection of Personal Data. On the website of the Authority for the Protection of Personal Data you will read the steps you would have to take.
More information about the processing of your data when visiting our website can be found in our Cookie Policy.
As soon as you come to the UMCG and are registered as a patient, we will start processing your personal data. By processing, we mean that we will, for example, store your data, add to it, provide it to your care providers and, over time, also delete it. While you are receiving treatment in the UMCG, your medical data will be processed in your patient file.
We need your personal data in order to provide you with the best possible care, which is another thing we stand for! Every care provider does their utmost to give you the best treatment. We therefore need your medical data, such as what you tell the doctor, test results, diagnosis and treatment plan. In addition to your medical data we also need other personal data, such as your name, address, date of birth and BSN. We need this to identify you and to ensure that we do not confuse you with another patient. We will not process more data than we need to provide you with good care, and this applies to all data. We will keep your data for at least 20 years after the end of your treatment. Because the UMCG is an academic hospital, we are required by law to keep certain data from your medical file, known as 'core documents', for 115 years from your date of birth. The core documents include the discharge letter, surgery and anaesthesia report, the results of pathological examinations and the first aid report.
We see it as our duty to protect your data as much as possible, it is part of our daily work. All care providers and staff who are directly involved in your treatment have a legal duty of confidentiality and will not share your data with others. If we do find it important to share your data with others, you may decide that and we will ask for your permission. In emergencies or emergency situations, a different decision may be made by us.
The fact that we do not share your data with others may affect people who want to visit you when you are in the UMCG. It is very important to us that you can decide for yourself who can visit you and who is allowed to know you are staying at the UMCG. Therefore, if a call is made for you to the central telephone number, we will not provide any information about you, but will indicate to the caller that you or your contact person may be contacted. For visitors who come to the front desk, we will only provide information about you if you have given us permission to do so. This concerns information about whether you have been admitted to the UMCG and if so, on which ward and in which room you are staying. Before you are admitted to the UMCG, we will ask you whether you consent to the provision of this information. Your consent applies to anyone who asks for you at our reception desk, including, for example, a spiritual counsellor. If you do not give permission, or if the situation has prevented us from asking for your permission, for reasons of privacy we will not provide any information about your situation, including whether or not you are staying at the UMCG.
If you are brought in via the Emergency Department (A&E/ER), it sometimes happens that a neighbour or family member tells our reception desk that they do not know where you are. In that case, the reception desk will refer this person to the emergency room. It is then up to the staff of the ER to determine whether information about you may be given. They will, of course, take into account whether you are approachable and whether this person is indeed a family member or neighbour of yours. If you are transferred to a nursing ward from the A&E department, you will still be asked for permission to provide information about you to visitors.
You may access your personal data and your complete patient file. You can ask your doctor for this. Your doctor may not refuse to give you access. They are, however, allowed to block certain parts if they contain information about someone else, such as a family member. The doctor is also not required to give access to their personal work records.
You can request a free copy of your record. To do so, you can send an e-mail to VMG@umcg.nl. You can also send a letter to the Head of the department where you are being treated or to the director of Patient Care, Quality & Safety UMCG, house zip code LA10, P.O. Box 30001, 9700 RB Groningen. Send a copy of your identity document with the request. In your request, please indicate whether you would like copies of any photographs taken. If you would like multiple copies of your patient file, we will charge a reasonable fee for the additional copies. Your proof of identity will be destroyed immediately after the identity check.
You may have your personal information changed. For example, if you have moved house and your address is no longer correctly stated in your file. Or if we have made a mistake in your date of birth or have written your name incorrectly. These all relate to changing factual information. You are not allowed to, for example, change a diagnosis. However, you may always add your own views to the file, as well as the outcome of a second opinion. If you want to change your personal data, such as your address, you can notify one of your treating physicians. If you wish to add anything to the file or wish to change any factual inaccuracies in the file, you can do so by sending an e-mail to dim@umcg.nl or a letter to the director of Patient Care, Quality & Safety UMCG, home zip code LA10, P.O. Box 30001, 9700 RB Groningen.
You also have the right to ask for your file to be destroyed. You may ask this for the entire file or for part of it. You can e-mail your request to have your file destroyed to dim@umcg.nl or submit it in writing to the director of Patient Care, Quality & Safety UMCG , house zip code LA10, PO Box 30001, 9700 RB Groningen, including a copy of your identity document. In principle, the UMCG must comply with your request to (partially) destroy your file, but not in all cases. This is the case when your doctor believes that it is clearly in your best interests to keep the file or parts of the file. This is because your doctor is also bound by his duty of care. Your doctor can then reconsider the destruction in coordination with you. Your doctor may also refuse to destroy a file if they are required by law or regulation to keep it for a certain period of time. For example, if it involves financial data about billing for care, we are required to keep it for 7 years. In the event that it is of great importance to someone else that your file be kept, your request for destruction may also be denied. This could be the interest of your child in connection with hereditary diseases. The doctor must be able to explain to you why they do not want to destroy your file or parts of it.
Do you disagree and still want your file destroyed? You can ask your doctor for an explanation and discuss this with them. You can also file a complaint with the UMCG. To file a complaint, you can go to the Patient Information desk or file a complaint with our Complaints Officer. More information can also be found in the brochure.
You have the right to take your personal data with you and transfer it to another hospital or care provider. This is also called data portability. This right only applies to data that you yourself have actively and consciously provided to the UMCG. This includes data from a pacemaker or blood pressure monitor. The right to data portability does not apply to information that the doctor determines on the basis of the data you have provided, such as conclusions, diagnoses, suspicions and treatment plans.
If you are sick and you come to the UMCG, we will do everything we can to make you better again. To do this properly, we will write down your name, where you live, how old you are and more information like this. That helps us remember who you are, so we won’t confuse you with someone else. We will also write down how you feel and what the results of tests tell us about your illness. We will put all this information in your file. We will take good care of all your data and only give it to the people who take care of you, like the doctor and the nurse. We also give your information to organizations that can improve the quality of care for children. If you have questions about this, feel free to ask your doctor.
Your parents may look in your file at what we have written down about you. If there is anything in it that is not correct, for example your address because you have moved, your parents may ask us to correct it. We will keep your file for at least 20 years from your 18th birthday. We are obliged to keep certain data for 115 years, but your parents can ask us to get rid of your file sooner. The doctor will always check if it is necessary for your treatment to keep your file. If the doctor thinks it is important to keep your file for later, we will not get rid of it. We will also ask your parents if they agree that we can tell visitors who come to the front desk that you are in the UMCG and in which room.
You can ask the doctor if you can look at your own file. Your parents are also allowed to ask this. If you would rather not have them look at your file, you are allowed to say so. Your parents will then not be allowed to access your file any longer. This also applies to asking for certain information to be changed or for your file to be removed. In any case, we will keep your file for at least 20 years from your 18th birthday. We are required to keep certain records for 115 years. We will also ask you and your parents if you are okay with us telling visitors who come to the front desk that you are in the UMCG and in which room.
You are allowed to look at your own file. Your parents are not allowed to. You are also allowed to ask us to change certain details if, for example, we have written down your address incorrectly. You can also ask us to destroy your file. Your parents are not allowed to do this either. If you ask us to destroy your file, the doctor will always check whether this is possible. If it is in your interest that we keep the file longer, the doctor may decide to do so. The doctor will then tell you why they think it is important to keep the file. Normally, we will keep your file for at least 20 years, starting from your 18th birthday. We will keep certain records for 115 years from the time you were born. We are required to do this by law as a teaching hospital. If you still want your parents to be able to look at your file, change something or ask for it to be destroyed, you must write down that you give your parents permission to do so and give it to them. We will also ask you if you are okay with us telling visitors who present at the front desk that you are in the UMCG and in which room you are staying.
At the UMCG we do scientific research to better understand how people become ill. We hope that this will make it easier for people to get better. Perhaps we can even prevent people from getting sick in the future.
It is possible that you are participating in scientific research at the UMCG. Usually you do not have to do anything because we use information that is already available. Sometimes we may want to know more about you and a researcher may therefore take an extra measurement or ask you some questions about how you feel.
If you are younger than 12 years old, we will always ask your parents if they approve of your participation. From the age of 12 we will also ask you if you want to participate, and when you are 16, you can decide for yourself. The doctor or researcher will tell you beforehand what they want to examine. If you do not understand something, you can always ask questions.
Researchers will use certain information about you, but will never mention your name in a scientific study. We always take good care of the data we collect for scientific research.
As soon as your child comes to us in the UMCG and your child is registered as a patient, we will start processing their personal data. By processing we mean that we will, for example, store the data, add to it, provide it to your health care providers and, after a while, also delete it. If your child is treated by us we will process their medical data in the patient file.
We need your child's personal information to provide him or her with the best possible care, that's also something we stand for! Every health care provider does their utmost best to give your child the best treatment. To provide this, we need your child's medical information, such as what you and/or your child tell the doctor, test results, the diagnosis and treatment plan. In addition to their medical information, we also need other personal information, such as your name, address, date of birth and BSN. We need this to identify your child and to ensure that we do not confuse your child with another patient. We will not process more data than we need to to provide you with good care, this rule applies to all data. We will retain the data for a minimum of 20 years after the end of treatment, starting from their 18th birthday. We keep certain data from the medical record, called "core documents", for 115 years from the birth of your child. Core documents include the discharge letter, surgery and anaesthesia report, pathology test results, and first aid report.
We see it as our duty to protect your child's data to the best of our abilities, this is part of our daily work. All caregivers and staff directly involved in the treatment of your child have a legal duty of confidentiality and will not share the data with others. If we do feel it is important to share this data with others, you and/or your child will be involved in the decision and we will ask your and/or your child's permission. In emergencies or emergency situations, a different decision may be made by us.
Depending on your child's age, you may make the decisions yourself, you may make decisions together with your child, or your child may make their own decisions.
As parents or legal representatives, you have the power to make decisions about your child and exercise their rights: the right to access data and to request a copy, the right to amend or supplement data and the right to have data destroyed.
Your child is allowed to have a say and in the event that consent is sought, consent will be sought from your child and you (double consent). Your child is also entitled to ask to see their own file. As a parent, you have the right to access the file together with your child. However, if your child does not want you to look at the file, your child's doctor may refuse to allow you to do so. This also applies to changing information or having the file destroyed.
Your child can make their own decisions and decide whether or not to give permission when this is asked. Your child is also allowed to access their own file and ask whether the information can be changed or destroyed. As a parent or legal representative, you are not allowed to do this. It is only possible to access your child's file, change something or ask for it to be destroyed if your child authorizes you to do so. Your child can do this by submitting a signed request stating that you, as parents, have permission to access, change or destroy the file.
The fact that we do not share your child's information with others may have implications for people who want to visit your child while they are in the UMCG. We feel it is very important that you and/or your child can decide for yourself who may visit them and who is allowed to know that your child is staying at the UMCG. Therefore, if a call is made to the central number of the UMCG for your child, we will not provide any information about them, but will indicate to the caller that you, your child or your contact person may be contacted. For visitors who come to the front desk, we will only provide information about your child if you and/or your child have given us permission to do so. This includes information about whether your child has been admitted to the UMCG and, if so, on which ward and in which room your child is staying. Before your child is admitted to the UMCG, we will ask you and/or your child whether you give us permission to provide this information. This permission applies to anyone who asks us at the reception desk about your child, including, for example, a spiritual counsellor. If you and/or your child do not give permission, or the situation has prevented us from asking permission, we will not provide any information about your situation, including whether or not your child is staying in the UMCG.
If your child is brought in via the Emergency Department (A&E/ER), it sometimes happens that a neighbour or family members ask our receptionists where your child is. In that case, the desk will refer this person to the emergency room. It is then up to the staff of the ER to determine whether information about your child may be given. They will, of course, take into account whether your child is approachable and verify that this person is indeed a relative or neighbour of your child. If your child is transferred from the emergency department to a nursing ward, you and/or your child will still be asked for permission to provide information about your child to visitors.
You may review your personal information and your complete patient record with us. You can ask your doctor for this. Your doctor may not refuse to do so. However, the doctor may hide certain parts if they contain information about someone else, such as a family member. The doctor is also not required to give access to their personal work records.
You can request a free copy of your record. To do so, send an e-mail to VMG@umcg.nl. You can also send a letter to the Head of the department where you are being treated or to the Director of Patient Care, Quality & Safety UMCG, house zip code LA10, P.O. Box 30001, 9700 RB Groningen. Send a copy of your identity document with the request. Your proof of identity will be destroyed immediately after the identity check. In your request, please indicate whether you would like copies of any photographs taken. If you would like multiple copies of your patient file, we will charge a reasonable fee for the additional copies.
You and/or your child may change data. For example, if your child has moved and the registered address is no longer correct. Or if we have made a mistake in your child's date of birth or have written their name incorrectly. All of the aforementioned examples are about changing factual information. However, you and/or your child may not change a diagnosis. You and/or your child are allowed to add your own views to the file, as well as the outcome of a second opinion. If you and/or your child want to change the data, you can notify one of your child's doctors. If you and/or your child want to add something to the file or alter incorrect information, you can If you wish to add anything to the file or wish to change any factual inaccuracies in the file, you can do so by sending an e-mail to dim@umcg.nl or a letter to the director of Patient Care, Quality & Safety, house zip code LA10, P.O. Box 30001, 9700 RB Groningen
You and/or your child may request that the file be destroyed. You and/or this child may request this for all or part of the file. You and/or your child can e-mail your request to have your file destroyed to dim@umcg.nl or submit it in writing to the director of Patient Care, Quality & Safety UMCG, home zip code LA10, PO Box 30001, 9700 RB Groningen, including a clear copy of your child's identity document. In principle, the UMCG must comply with your request to (partially) destroy your file, but not in all cases. This is the case when your child's doctor believes that it is clearly in your best interests to keep the file or parts of it. The reason why the doctor has a right to do so, is because they are also bound by their duty of care. The doctor can then reconsider the destruction in coordination with you and/or your child. The doctor may also refuse to destroy the file if he or she is required by law or regulation to keep it for a certain period of time. For example, if it is financial data about billing for care, we are required to keep it for 7 years. Also in the event that it is of great importance to someone else that your child's file be kept, your request for destruction may be denied. This might include, for example, your child's interest in relation to hereditary diseases. The doctor must be able to justify to you and/or your child why they do not want to destroy the file or parts of it.
Do you or your child disagree and do you still want the file to be destroyed? You and/or your child can ask the doctor for an extra explanation and discuss this with them. You can also file a complaint with the UMCG. To file a complaint, please contact the Patient Information desk or submit a complaint to our Complaints Officer. See here for more information and the brochure 'Klachtenregeling UMCG'. Depending on the age of your child, you can also do this yourself.
You and/or your child have the right to take your personal data and transfer it to another hospital or health care provider. This is also called data portability. This right only applies to data that you and/or your child have actively and knowingly provided to the UMCG, including data from a pacemaker or blood pressure monitor. The right to data portability does not apply to information that the doctor determines based on the data provided by you and/or your child, such as conclusions, diagnoses, suspicions and treatment plans.
If you are not a patient of the UMCG, we may still process a limited amount of personal data about you. This only happens if it is necessary for us to contact you. This is the case if you become our patient's contact person or legal representative, if you leave your details when filling in a web form or by sending us an e-mail. We will not keep this data longer than necessary. For example, as long as your loved one is admitted to us, or as long as it takes to answer your question to us. We will not give your data to third parties without your consent. For more information on how we process your data when you visit our website, please see our Cookie Policy.
When you take part in an activity at the UMCG in the context of personal or professional development (course, training, supervision programme, etc.), we collect some necessary personal data. To do so, we record and process your data for the duration of the training or educational activity and for a certain period thereafter. We consider your privacy very important, therefore we handle your personal data with care. We have taken measures to protect the data properly. This privacy statement describes what data we process and why. You will also find information about your rights.
In order to provide quality education and to train and supervise students and staff, it is necessary to process a variety of personal data. These include contact details such as your name, address, date of birth and email address. We need this data to be able to identify you and to ensure that we do not confuse you with another participant. Depending on the specific training or development activity, we keep additional data such as your study results, your progress data and grades are kept in the education file and participants create a portfolio in which their results are kept by themselves and by their supervisors. We process your personal data on the basis of the legal obligations we have in the context of providing good education. In addition, we process your data because we enter into an agreement with you to provide your education. We will never process more data than we need to provide the training or educational activity.
We will not keep your data longer than necessary to provide the training or educational activity and its completion. In principle, we will keep your data for a maximum of two years after the end of the course, training or guidance programme. However, if there is a legal obligation to retain it, this retention period may be longer. We will keep exam results and study results until they expire, for example, which is after ten years. Diplomas and certificates are kept for 30 years. Lastly, registration data of participants is kept for seven years. Theses and other similar documents are only kept if you give us permission to do so and are then kept in a physical and/or electronic library and remain available to other interested parties.
You have the right to ask what data of yours is being processed and to see it. In doing so, you also have the right to know what the data is processed for, who receives it and how long it is kept. You may also ask for a copy of your personal data. A copy of your data will be provided to you free of charge. If you wish to receive multiple copies we may charge a reasonable fee.
If you notice that your personal data is not correctly or completely registered, you have the right to have it amended or completed. We will then ensure that the correct information is entered into our systems as soon as possible. Once we know that certain data is incorrect, we will not use your data until we have checked its accuracy.
You may request the destruction of all or part of your data. If there is no legitimate reason to refuse your request, we will delete your data. There are situations where we cannot comply with your request, such as when we are required by law to retain the data. This applies to the request to destruct results of your study or an examination. If it is not possible to destroy certain data we inform you of the reason.
You have the right to take your personal data with you and transfer it to another educational institution. This is also known as data portability. This right only applies to digital data and to the data we have received from you, for example by you providing it to us or by using a service or device we have made available for the duration of the course.
Where to go for your request to inspect, amend, delete and transfer your data depends on where you are studying:
As a university hospital, we do a lot of scientific research. In this way we learn more about health and disease. In turn, this knowledge helps us to better understand, treat and prevent diseases. Anyone can participate in research, not just patients of the UMCG.
For many scientific studies, we use medical data and body material from patients. These are materials and data which we already have from a patient, for example because someone has been to us for diagnosis or treatment. Sometimes we also ask patients to provide us with additional data or body material to help us with our research.
Because your data and body material are involved, your privacy is also important in scientific research. We cannot see (directly) to whom the material or data belongs, for example. Information such as someone’s name, address and telephone number are removed or replaced by a code or number. The place where and the software with which a research is done is well secured. Surveys must always comply with laws and regulations.
If we want to use your data for a scientific study, we will ask your permission. You can always withdraw this permission. Sometimes we cannot ask for permission, for example because someone has died or is very difficult to find. In such cases, we are allowed to use medical data for scientific research without having to ask for permission, under strict conditions.
If you do not want your data or body material to be used for research, you can let us know. How to do so can be found in the brochure “Use of medical data and/or remaining body material”.
You may always view your personal data collected for scientific research. For example:
You may request a free copy of this data from the researcher conducting the scientific research. You may also request a description of why and how your data was used in the scientific research. This is also free of charge. The researcher must give you this if you ask for it. If you want more copies, we will charge a reasonable fee for the additional copies.
Is certain data incorrect? You can report this to the researcher, who can then correct the data. This only concerns data such as your date of birth or email address. You must be able to show that the data is incorrect, for example with a driver's license.
A completed questionnaire, diagnosis or measurement result cannot be corrected.
We keep data that we have collected and used for scientific research for about 20 years, sometimes longer. This also applies to your contact details such as name and address. This is done because we need to be able to check whether a scientific study was done properly and is valid. You can ask the researcher if your data can be destroyed in the future. Data that have not yet been used for research can be destroyed immediately.
For data held in a database or biobank, it works a little differently. If you have given written consent, you have also been given a withdrawal form. You can fill this out and send it to us. We will then ensure that your data are removed. You will receive a confirmation of this. If you no longer have the information letter and the form, you can request new copies from the database or biobank researcher