Radio Netherlands Worldwide reports: The Dutch Senate has unanimously rejected Health Minister Edith Schippers’ plan to introduce the Electronic Patient Dossier (EPD) nationwide. Under the scheme, people’s medical records would have been available to doctors and other health professionals throughout the country. However, the senators decided that the planned system’s security was not good enough…
Category: Uncategorized
AU: Doctors breaching patient privacy: Orwell redux
Via Dr. Ken Pope’s mail list, I learned of an article in the Medical Journal of Australia by David J. Handelsman, Leo A. Turner, and Ann J. Conway, ” Doctors breaching patient privacy: Orwell redux.” Here’s an excerpt from the commentary: Of all the ethical principles underlying medical practice, confidentiality is so fundamental that its…
Army suicide prevention efforts raising privacy concerns
Greg Zoroya reports: An Army effort to reduce suicides by sharing more of soldiers’ personal therapy information with squad, platoon or company leaders — even in cases where there is no threat of self-harm — is pushing the limit of privacy laws, say civilian experts on medical records restrictions. Soldiers may be discouraged from seeking…
When it comes to compiling breaches, more is better
As announced by the good folks at DataLossDB.org today, I’ve agreed to work with them in terms of maintaining and developing their database. DataBreaches.net and PHIprivacy.net will continue as they always have, but expect to see more breaches show up in DataLossDB in a timely fashion and expect to see more backfilling over time and…
Adoption legislation could make access to family records easier
Scott Smith and Maureen Hayden report: Dan Zehner had to wait close to 50 years to meet his seven brothers and sisters. That fact, more than anything else, is his biggest regret as an adoptive child. Now Zehner, a Kokomo Fire Department inspector, is backing legislation to make it easier for other adoptive children to…
Texas Senate Passes Medical Privacy Bill
From the Courier-Gazette, some positive news from Texas that the Senate passed SB 622, a bill proposed by Senator Jane Nelson last month . “Medical records include highly sensitive information, and the misuse of this information can put patients at risk for severe financial and personal consequences,” Nelson said. “This bill protects patients from having…