Dana Flavelle reports that private investigators hired by an association of secure document disposal companies found lots of personal information in dumpsters in the Greater Toronto area. Doctors offices and car dealers got an unwanted shout-out in their findings. Most organizations, especially large banks and hospitals, are doing a good job of disposing of sensitive…
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Feds Seek Input on PHR Privacy
From Health Data Management: The Department of Health and Human Services and Federal Trade Commission will hold a day-long roundtable discussion on Dec. 3 at FTC headquarters in Washington to solicit industry input on privacy and security requirements for personal health records and related service providers. Read more here.
Court Quashes Subpoenas Seeking Abortion Records
Jeff Gorman reports: Kansas health employees are not required to hand over abortion records to former state Attorney General Phill Kline or testify about the contents of those reports, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled. In 2004, Kline subpoenaed Shawnee County District Judge Richard D. Anderson, attorney Stephen W. Cavanaugh, and employees of the Kansas Department…
Transparency is no substitute for informed consent in health records privacy
William Pewen wrote a terrific commentary a few weeks ago. If you didn’t read it, read it now. Here’s a snippet: Unfortunately, the congressional approach to medical records has failed to be a truly patient-centered one. Republicans largely view medical information through a business lens and assert that the marketplace will be self-correcting; many Democrats…
Consent and privacy in HIT, redux
Julie Chang reported on a recent Texas Tribune interview with David Blumenthal, the national coordinator of Health Information Technology. Here’s the section dealing with privacy issues, and it follows on the heels of some great reporting by the Austin Bulldog, covered previously on this blog, that revealed how a lot of patient data is being…
Alberta's sex sterilizations re-examined
From CBC News: Historians, academics and victims gathered at the University of Alberta on Saturday to re-examine the province’s former eugenics policy. In 1928, the Alberta government passed legislation that allowed the province to medically sterilize people deemed to have mental disabilities. Before the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta was repealed in 1972, more than…