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eHealth Records: Privacy is the Stumbling Block
With $19 billion earmarked in stimulus funds to bootstrap this country’s electronic health record system, one would hope for a quantum leap forward in a very short period of time. Obama has put forward the challenge to digitize every American’s health record by the year 2014. So the stage is set for some transformative change.
But privacy issues loom as a major hurdle to be overcome before the use of eHealth records will become widespread. Part of the problem is that there are a myriad number of state and federal rules around medical privacy. Many states have regulations that are tougher than what is in HIPAA. And another twist to the picture is that some eHealth applications like Microsoft’s give the user total control of what data goes into their profile and the access restrictions around that data — which means that a user could hide some information, such as a medication that they are taking, from certain doctors.
“Consent is the 800-pound gorilla for medical privacy,” said Ashley Katz, executive director of the advocacy group Patient Privacy Rights.
