Healthcare IT News - November 2007 - (Page 4) Healthcare IT News ■ November 2007 industry news www.HealthcareITNews.com coalition clamors for legislation on patient privacy By DIana Manos, Senior Editor – Lawmakers, heads of corporations and activists are urging Congress to protect patients’ medical privacy rights. Activists say such rights are not adequately protected, especially when it comes to electronic health records. At a Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by the Coalition for Patient Privacy last month, at least 46 states, national organizations and corporations, including Microsoft, petitioned Congress for adequate patient protection in WAshinGton any healthcare IT legislation it may pass. The request is based on the coalition’s 2007 patient privacy principles and calls for privacy that applies to all health information regardless of the source, the form it is in, or who handles it. According to Deborah Peel, MD, founder and chairwoman of Patient Privacy Rights, the coalition developed the privacy principles to serve as standards for legislation. The group aims to curtail passage of currently proposed federal healthcare IT legislation that Peel said offers consumers care IT ecosystem that consumno control over access to personal ers can trust. “We can empower health information. people to lead healthy lives, while The coalition recently endorsed putting them at the center and in Microsoft’s new patient-protected control of their health informapersonal health record platform tion,” Torres said. – a product Peel said is based on Rep. Ed Markey, (D-Mass.), the coalition’s privacy principles. chairman of the House Privacy Frank Torres, consumer affairs Deborah Peel, MD Caucus, spoke at the Washington director at Microsoft, said protecbriefing, and he was among the tions such as those defined by the coalition signers of the letter to Congress. are needed to ensure the creation of a healthPRIVaCy see page 6 BlUePRInT Continued from page 3 “we see a great opportunity to generate dialogue around information sharing.” – Christine Bechtel The eHI plan offers consensus in five areas: engaging consumers; transforming care delivery; improving population health; aligning financial and other incentives; and managing privacy, christine Bechtel security, and confidentiality. Bechtel said that more work is needed in areas related to financing and policies for information sharing. “We see a great opportunity to generate dialogue around information sharing,” Bechtel said. “This is not a guide to implement health IT. We are providing a guide as to how to provide safer and more valuedriven healthcare.” eHI leaders say the release of the blueprint is Phase I of a two-phase process. Phase II, occurring over the next 12 months, will involve eHI in the “wide dissemination” of the blueprint, support for its implementation, facilitation Jeffrey Kang, MD of the sharing of related best practices, and a search for input from additional stakeholders at the national and local levels. “There needs to be further national discussion on the costs and benefits of health IT,” said Jeffrey Kang, MD, senior vice president and chief medical officer at Cigna Healthcare and president of the eHealth Initiative Foundation. “We believe that the blueprint will be a living document and will evolve.” Kang and Bechtel agreed that one of the most important aspects of the blueprint was its attempt to engage consumers. They said the healthcare John tooker, MD industry has not done a good job in reaching out to consumers, and that doing so could help accelerate the adoption of healthcare IT. “We want to change the model of healthcare in the U.S. to a patient-centric model where patients can participate in their healthcare decisions while maintaining patient privacy and security,” said John Tooker, MD, executive vice president and chief executive officer, American College of Physicians and Board President of the eHealth Initiative. ■ More at HealthcareITnews.com e Connect: BLUePrINt 1107 Offer subject to CDW’s standard terms and conditions of sale, available at CDW.com. ©2007 CDW Corporation ● 4694_cdw_HITN_sel_sp_11-1.indd 1 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.CDW.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=8017
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