Mary Mosquera reports: The Health & Human Services Department plans in December to release significantly more health-related data to spur commercial development of new software applications designed to help patients, providers and policymakers make better health care decisions. National, state and county health performance data sets will be made available via the Internet to HHS’s…
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The war on drugs makes flu sufferers felons
Jim Edwards asks, “Why Do Police Want a Centralized Database of Flu Sufferers?” A federal law intended to restrict the crystal meth trade is leading to a centralized police database of flu sufferers. In a rash of recent cases across the South and Midwest, people innocently buying the nasal decongestant pseudoephedrine – often sold as Pfizer (PFE)’s Sudafed, Dimetapp,…
HIPAA, Twitter, and the Siren's Call
After my dismay at how a breach seemed to be casually revealed on Twitter last weekend, I thought I’d keep an eye out for situations in which use of social media might raise the specter of the HIPAA privacy rule. In the example below, I do not think that the twitterer violated the rule in any particular…
If your data in the cloud got sick, could you make a virtual housecall?
Gienna Shaw has an article on HealthLeaders Media about healthcare entities using cloud services. She includes a number of helpful examples of how cloud services can be a boon to entities, but unfortunately, there is no real discussion of the security and privacy risks in the article. The potential problems in using cloud services are…
Clinic blasts calls for added oversight of porn industry
Molly Hennessy-Fiske reports on the latest developments in a battle between the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) and the Adult Industry Medical (AIM) HealthCare Foundation, a Los Angeles area HIV testing clinic funded by and serving the adult film industry. The dispute pits privacy against public health concerns that unprotected sex in the adult porn industry…
Scientists publish DNA results to encourage worldwide databases
Laura Roberts reports: A group of 12 genetics scientists will publish the results of DNA tests today to encourage people to make their own information available for scientific research. The “DNA Dozen” want to allay fears amongst the public that information about their genes should not be widely shared on the grounds that it is…