Healthcare Sector and Data Protection: A New Way of Communicating Legal Concepts

Communication for lay audiences is a fundamental clinical skill that, if performed competently and efficiently, facilitates the establishment of a relationship of trust between the medical staff and the patient-customer. Organizations with strong communication policies can enrich their patients' health, while those that do not have effective procedures in place can negatively affect patient well-being. In such a context, healthcare organizations need to invest time and capital in effectively communicating legal concept related to data protection to patients. The General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) sets important challenges for the health care sector, outlining stringent new policies for collecting, processing, and securing personal data Visual techniques applied to GDPR provisions can play an effective role in correctly spreading awareness and knowledge on this relevant issue. The power of visualization lies in the fact that the human brain has the potential to identify images and other visuals (images, charts, maps, infographics, videos, pull-quotes, memes, diagrams or annotations) very quickly. It not only simplifies the learning process, but also helps lay-learners to understand the concepts more clearly, reinforcing cognition and overcoming specialized languages barriers. In this regard, a feasibility study on which are the appropriate visual law techniques applied to GDPR in the context of health care has been carried out, considering all the legal and ethical implications. In particular, the experiment has focused on infographics as information design tools that combine both graphical and textual elements explaining the main points of the data protection regulation addressed to customers/patients. This is in line with many current initiatives widely using infographics as a dissemination instrument by governments and legislators around Europe.