When are doctor-patient communications not privileged and confidential? Apparently when the government requests them as part of determining competence to stand trial. David Schwartz of Reuters reports: District Court Judge Larry Burns, in a ruling made public on Thursday, said there is no reason to prohibit the U.S. Bureau of Prisons from releasing to law…
Category: Uncategorized
Ie: HSE set to stop giving details on patients to media
Elaine Keogh reports: The Health Service Executive is to stop providing journalists with information on the condition of patients. It says that to tell the media the condition of a patient is “incompatible,” with its obligations to the privacy rights patients have “through the Constitution and indeed our obligations to article 8 of the European…
Oral argument in Sorrell v. IMS Health, Inc.
Tuesday the Supreme Court heard oral argument in a corporate speech case, Sorrell v. IMS Health, Inc. Adam Chandler of SCOTUSblog provides a recap: …. almost all journalists covering Sorrell agreed that the Court was skeptical of Vermont’s restriction on pharmaceutical marketers’ use of drug prescription records. “So heavy was the [Court’s] defense of corporate expression,” writes SCOTUSblog’s…
Coming up Tuesday: SCOTUS hears data-mining case Sorrell v. IMS
Lyle Denniston writes: The Supreme Court holds one hour of oral argument on Tuesday on the scope of constitutional protection for the modern phenomenon of “data-mining,” the creation of usable information out of masses of stored computer entries. The case is Sorrell, et al., v. IMS Health, et al. (10-779). Arguing for the state of…
No reasonable expectation of privacy in an emergency room
From the I-didn’t-know-that dept.: Patient privacy may not extend to the patient’s clothes or belongings. Via FourthAmendment.com: An officer who came to the trauma section of Grady Hospital in Atlanta could seize defendant’s clothing in plain view. Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the ER. United States v. Howard, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS…
Ca: Fact Sheet #17 – Applying PHIPA and FIPPA/MFIPPA to Personal Health Information
The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario has issued a Fact Sheet to provide organizations that are defined as both health information custodians under the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) and institutions under public sector privacy and access to information legislation, namely the provincial Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) or its municipal…