HHS Secretary nominee pushes HIT’s role in data mining even as new report of stolen electronic medical records surfaces

On Tuesday, HHS Secretary nominee, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, confirmed her support for the use of electronic medical records as a way of data mining patient information.

During the Senate hearings on her confirmation, Gov. Sebelius said that electronic health records (EHR) data was crucial to conduct “comparative effectiveness research [CER] to provide information on the relative strengths and weaknesses of alternative medical interventions to health providers and consumers.”

The stimulus bill passed with $1.1 billion allocated for CER to compare the clnical outcomes, effectiveness, and appropriateness of medical services. During the hearing, Sen. Pat Roberts from Gov. Sebelius’s own state of Kansas, expressed his concern that CER would be used to justify rationing by comparing costs, rather than effectiveness.

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Thanks to Rob Douglas for sending this link.