News Brief

There has been, in effect, a summit conference which has arrived at a framework to guide patient privacy as individuals se up electronic personal health records. If the agreement becomes a reality, this shall be a victory for patients, for caregivers and for everybody who has a stake in safer, quality health care.

Electronic medical records always have been an excellent idea—-making it possible for any caregiver to see a patient’s whole record to prevent medication errors or other avoidable treatment problems. This is an effort requiring the federal government to build a common spine for such a system and doctors to convert from paper to electronic records. Doctors have been extremely slow to convert, because of cost and time investments.

Against this backdrop, enter Microsoft and Google, each of which has been developing a consumer personal health record.

Why wouldn’t everyone rush to set theirs up?

Many privacy experts have been extremely concerned about the risks to patients whose medical confidentiality could be violated because they are storing medical information with organizations which are not covered under HIPPA, the law which includes protections for the privacy of medical records. HIPPA only safeguards records held by those which are classified as a “covered entity.” Covered entities include doctors, hospitals, health plans and other types of health caregivers as defined in HIPPA.

OK. We have HIPPA to keep our records safe in the hands of caregivers and health plans. We have the Internet big boys giving us a chance to keep our own records but with no protections under law. What is a patient/consumer to do?

The Markle Foundation has come to the rescue, “orchestrating” a series of negotiations that broke up the privacy logjam. A peace prize should be theirs if it works.

One caution: When a statement says that a “framework” has been agreed upon, that word choice means that real work has not yet begun. Frameworks are far from done deals. In the meantime, if you read the Google user agreement, you will find a statement that says Google is not a “covered entity.”

This is not a time to be a pioneer. Please don’t be first.

It will be a great thing to have our own health records, safely stored physically and safe from prying eyes.

But.

Until the prying eyes problem is dealt with, wait. Your privacy is too important to risk.

Bloomberg News

“Microsoft Corp., Google Inc., and dozens of organizations promoting consumer adoption of electronic personal health records agreed for the first time on a comprehensive set of privacy protections.

“An 18-month effort by health insurers, Web portals, doctors, hospitals and nonprofit groups produced a framework that will spur growth in the use of personal health records, improving the U.S. health system, they said today in a statement. The negotiations were orchestrated by the Markle Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit group that focuses on uses for information technology.

“The framework ends a “privacy logjam,” that has inhibited use of electronic records, thought to be able to cut duplication, costs and errors, the groups said. The push for consumer- controlled data parallels U.S. government efforts to promote adoption of electronic medical records by health care providers, an initiative yet to win over most doctors because of costs.”

Source: Bloomberg News, June 27, 2008