Global Healthcare Providers Brace for New UAE Data Privacy Law

The United Arab Emirates is preparing to roll out a new law that will regulate the use, storage and privacy of healthcare data in the country.

The law, which broadly mirrors the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, would help safeguard patient data while increasing the compliance burden on providers, insurers and brokers, practitioners say. It will impact international healthcare providers, including Johns Hopkins Medicine International, that operate facilities in the UAE, which is a major destination for global health tourism.

The law would create a central system to gather healthcare data to develop services in public health and ...