Health care IT adviser resigns over lack of progress on privacy

Paul Feldman, chair of the privacy and security workgroup of the American Health Information Community, on Wednesday announced his resignation because the workgroup "has not made substantial progress towards the development of comprehensive privacy and security policies that must be at the core of a nationwide health information network," CQ HealthBeat reports.

According to CQ HealthBeat, HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt established AHIC to "help spur consensus on standards to be used by information technology vendors to assure that their systems are compatible and to assure the public that personal health information can't be hacked or otherwise won't be released." In a letter to Robert Kolodner, interim national coordinator for health information technology, Feldman, deputy director of the Health Privacy Project at Georgetown University, wrote that "the failure to achieve a privacy framework acts as a significant barrier to a robust and secure environment for e-health." The letter -- co-signed by Janlori Goldman, director of the Health Privacy Project -- said that the workgroup has developed only one set of recommendations in six meetings. In addition, the letter said that efforts by AHIC on privacy are a "far cry from a comprehensive and timely approach that would give privacy policy equal and necessary footing with interoperability and systems development efforts." The letter also cited a report recently released by the Government Accountability Office that found HHS has "not yet defined an overall approach for integrating its various privacy-related initiatives and addressing key privacy principles, nor has it defined milestones for integrating the results of these activities."

Response
HHS spokesperson Christina Pearson said, "While we are saddened that Mr. Feldman will no longer co-chair the working group, we remain strong in our commitment to developing comprehensive privacy and security policies." She added, "We have made substantial progress since AHIC's establishment by leveraging existing privacy policy foundations; building robust, new public-private collaborations; partnering with states, health care organizations and consumers to address state and business level protections; and considering privacy and security policies and implementation at a nationwide level" (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 2/21).