Who can release my medical records if I'm temporarily disabled?

Question

Say I have a severe allergic reaction, or cardiac event, or poisoning, or any of a billion other conditions that would require urgent medical care, but might leave me unconscious or otherwise unable to provide authorization to release my medical records to healthcare professionals. If I'm not a minor, can my parents authorize said release? Siblings? Spouses? Other family? Friends?

Answer 1

This might be a better question in the legal forums, but as far as I know in my training, medical records cannot be released in the event of a person becoming incapacitated (i.e.: the conditions you listed above) unless it is a transfer of you (physically) to another more sophisticated hospital and it meant life or death. Even in that case, it would only be a transfer of the records they had from that specific visit as far as I know.

If you have declared a medical proxy or power of attorney (usually a family member), I believe (again, this is a more legal issue than I've had to deal with!) that your information is required to stay confidential within the facility that is treating you.