Remarks at the Sixth Annual Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust Address by Elizabeth Denham, Assistant Privacy Commissioner Fredericton, New Brunswick October 20, 2008 We want to find ways to let EHR technology achieve its promise while at the same time protecting this pivotal right we call privacy. We are acutely aware of the many…
Category: Health Data
Identity Crisis: An Examination of the Costs and Benefits of a Unique Patient Identifier for the U.S. Health Care System
By: Richard Hillestad, James H. Bigelow, Basit Chaudhry, Paul Dreyer, Michael D. Greenberg, Robin C. Meili, M. Susan Ridgely, Jeff Rothenberg, Roger Taylor A national health information network, or NHIN, that enables disparate health care information systems across the United States to allow authorized users to easily and quickly share critical health information has the…
Taking a Peek at the Experts’ Genetic Secrets
Amy Harmon reports: Is Esther Dyson, the technology venture capitalist who is training to be an astronaut, genetically predisposed to a major heart attack? Does Steven Pinker, the prominent psychologist and author, have a gene variant that raises his risk of Alzheimer’s, which his grandmother suffered from, to greater than 50 percent? Did Misha Angrist,…
Atlanta Police sued for violation of privacy
Tim Eberly reports: A man who tried to become an Atlanta police officer in 2006 is suing the department, claiming it secretly had him tested for HIV and would not hire him after learning that he was HIV-positive. The man, who filed the lawsuit in federal court under the pseudonym Richard Roe, is accusing Atlanta…
MD: Hospital patient data revealed
Jim Hall reports: A security breach in an online computer system at Mary Washington Hospital exposed the private medical information of some of its maternity patients. A man who tried to use the Fredericksburg hospital’s online registration system for his expectant wife said the files for 803 patients were publicly available on the site. On…
PHR Privacy Questions Get Tougher When Criminal Justice System Involved
Dennis Melamed writes: The Kabuki we see in the transition to electronic health records obscures two obvious and fundamental issues: The nature of the confidentiality privilege for electronic records maintained by patients instead of doctors; and The right to avoid self-incrimination when medical records contain information that might result in criminal prosecutions. Both issues deal…