PPR has issued a new white paper. From their press release:
Patient Privacy Rights (PPR), the nation’s leading health privacy watchdog released a white paper entitled, “The Case for Informed Consent: Why it is Critical to Honor What Patients Expect: for Health Care, Health IT and Privacy.” The paper is designed to be a primer on health privacy and argues that the
primary stakeholder in health care, the patient, must retain control over their personal health information. The white paper is available online at http://patientprivacyrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/The-Case-for-Informed-Consent.pdf.The white paper tackles the arguments made that patient control is too technically difficult, is too expensive, or is too complex, among others. In fact, robust privacy-enhancing technologies are in use now that ensure both progress and privacy. Technology can enable control over personal health information today and likely simplify our systems and lower costs.
“Patients know what they want,” says Patient Privacy Rights’ founder, Deborah Peel, MD. “It is a mistake to design health IT in a paternalistic manner — assuming a corporation, vendor, provider or government agency knows what is best for each individual patient.”