Medical law review
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There is an inherent tension between critical care research and data protection. Because of their condition it is not possible to ask for the patients' informed consent to be enrolled in observational research at the point of admission to the hospital. Often this is not possible at a later moment either. ⋯ We compared existing national privacy legislation from the perspective of critical care research and found great variation. Although this may not impede the collection of emergency and critical care research with data without prior informed consent in countries which are more responsive to such research, it might be a challenge to exchange such data from the national nodes in European wide research collaboration. We make a case that countries which are not responsive to such research should adapt their legislation in the interests of future critical care patients.