Seen at The Health Care Blog:
I’m a card carrying member of the ACLU. I oppose the Patriot Act. And I absolutely oppose the current Administration’s decision to ignore the FISA law that already bends over backwards to help the government spy on Americans whom it suspects of criminal activity. I’m also appalled when I read stories like this one—in which the FBI has been illegally abusing its power by issuing “National Security letters†willy nilly.
I say all this because it’s now a couple of weeks since Google announced it’s health initiative and during that time we held the second Health 2.0 conference. And all the mainstream press can write about is the potential for privacy violations in online health sites, and PHRs, whether it’s been in the San Diego Union Tribune, ZDNET, USA Today or Modern Healthcare.
So even this balanced article in the Washington Post leads with Deborah Peel from Patient Privacy Rights and you have to wade through her incendiary rhetoric before you get to some sense from John Rother, while David Kibbe’s rational applauding of electronic health records only appears towards the end. Here’s what Peel says:
Many online PHR firms share information with data-mining companies, which then sell it to insurers and other interested parties, Peel said.
Well I’m still waiting to see the proof about this. Essentially she’s saying that consumers’ identifiable data is being sold and used against them, and so PHRs are bad.
Much data is of course sold in health care, but as far as I’m aware it’s all de-idenitifed. Whether PHR companies are systematically selling data is unclear. Whether they are selling identifiable data (the thing HIPAA bans and everyone agrees is a bad idea) I severely doubt.
And the problem is that this type of allegation gets the conversation completely off track. The biggest problem with the US health care system and its use of technology is not privacy violations. It’s inefficient use of data causing harm (and costs and poor quality care).
I am getting more than a little annoyed with this focus on the wrong thing.
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Read the full commentary at The Health Care Blog