CategoriesJoin Us At:
|
Privacy and Patient Control Are the Missing Parts of Electronic Health Records LegislationWhile raising reasons why electronic health records will improve medical care, the June 24 New York Times editorial "Our Pen-and-Paper Doctors" failed to mention how attention to privacy and patient control can foster adoption of the electronic system. Seventy percent of Americans fear that medical privacy protections will be reduced in the name of efficiency. Patients need to recognize we can have both efficient, shared electronic records and privacy. But elected officials must create rules that prevent the sale, sharing or reuse by third parties like pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and data brokers of personally identifiable health information. As businesses develop secure data storage systems, they need to be barred from commodifying patient information. Furthermore, Congress should build into health information technology proposals consent provisions to allow patient control over certain data. Technology alone will not make the system effective in emergencies or other situations. Patients and doctors have to confidently cooperate.
We intend the comments portion of this blog to be a forum where you can freely express your views on blog postings and on comments made by other people. Given that, please understand that you are responsible for the material you post on the comments portion of this blog. The only postings that we ask that you refrain from posting and that we cannot permit on our website are requests for legal assistance and postings that could cause ACLU to incur legal liability.
One important law in that regard is the prohibition on politically partisan activity. Given our nonprofit status, we may not endorse or oppose candidates for elective office. That means we cannot host comments on our site that show a preference for one candidate or party. Although we in no way wish to discourage you from that activity elsewhere, we ask that you not engage in that activity on our website (or include links to other websites that do so). Additionally, given that we are subject to very specific rules concerning the collection of personally identifying information through our website (names, email addresses, home address, financial information, etc.), we ask that you not use the comments portion of this blog to solicit this information from users of our website. We also ask that you not use the comments portion for advertising or requests for legal assistance, and do not add to your comment links to other websites, as we cannot be responsible for the content on other websites. We are not able to respond to unsolicited inquiries, complaints or requests for assistance sent to this blog. Please direct your complaint or request for assistance to the ACLU affiliate in your state. Requests for legal assistance left in the blog comments will not receive a response or be published. Finally, the ACLU cannot guarantee the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information in the comment section and expressly disclaims any liability for any information in this section. 1 Response to "Privacy and Patient Control Are the Missing Parts of Electronic Health Records Legislation" |
|
© ACLU, 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor New York, NY 10004 |
Jul 8th, 2008 at 11:25pm
The most important issue is the question of privacy. Medical records contain a lot of private information that patients do not want strangers to see.Some may feel that medical privacy protections will be reduced in the name of efficiency.