Health Law

The research within the law pillar of the Leuven Institute for Healthcare Policy focuses on the following themes: the prevention and compensation of medical malpractice, preventive healthcare and lifestyle, and the use of emerging technologies in a healthcare context.  The legal framework for the use of the aforementioned technologies, in particular big data, artificial intelligence and medically assisted reproduction techniques, is the subject of three ongoing PhD projects.

"The Belgian government and the use of Big Data for health protection and the organisation of qualitative healthcare.  A study of the legal framework"

Big Data shows a huge potential for health protection and the organisation of qualitative healthcare.  This explains the growing interest of the Belgian government in the use of Big Data for this purpose.  However, the question arises to what extent the legal framework allows this.  Consequently, the aim of this doctoral project is to analyse the limitations and options for the Belgian government resulting from the complex applicability of the various laws and regulations.

"Access to medically assisted reproduction technologies: a legal analysis"

For millennia people's minds have been occupied with their (in)fertility.  Positive science research oriented at medically assisted reproduction is operating at full speed which has led to several treatments for persons who encounter problems with procreating e.g. IVF and PGD.  The same does not hold for legal research on medically assisted reproduction.  This PhD research is aimed at filling that gap.  More specific, it subjects access to medically assisted procreation techniques to a legal analysis.

"Towards a regulatory framework for autonomous healthcare systems"

Artificial Intelligence is used to solve problems through its ability to learn.  Through learning, AI can autonomously perform increasingly complex tasks with (super-)human performance.  Given the aging population and the continuously increasing demand for quallity healthcare, it is not unlikely that "autonomous systems" in some sort or form will be used in the future to improve the healthcare provided to patients.  This PhD research will explore the suitable roles for an autonomous healthcare system and will analyse the responsibilities for healthcare provided by autonomous system, providing a conceptual framework on how autonomous healthcare systems can be regulated.