O.T. Privacy of Electronic Medical Records

[Guest guest]

For those on this board who have expressed fear that that electronic medical

records would destroy their privacy, here is an excerpt from the current issue

of the New England Journal of Medicine. A link to the entire article is at the

end of the excerpt.

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" The stimulus act also incorporates other rule changes that privacy advocates

and some lawmakers had been seeking for years. For example, it allows patients

to request an " audit trail " showing all electronic disclosures of their health

information and mandates that they be notified about any unauthorized disclosure

or use. It extends protections to personally controlled electronic health data

(such as those stored by Google Health, Microsoft HealthVault, and other online

data repositories), as well as to companies that do work on behalf of health

care providers, health plans, and health care clearinghouses (the entities

covered under HIPAA). When individually identifiable health information is

transmitted or physically transported, such as on a laptop computer, outside a

health care entity, it must be encrypted or otherwise rendered indecipherable to

unauthorized individuals. The act also includes limits on the sale of an

individual patient's health

information or its unauthorized use in marketing or fund-raising, increases

penalties for violations, and strengthens enforcement and oversight. "

 

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/reprint/360/11/1057.pdf