Jan 18 2010
CNN: "Despite a federal law requiring hospitals and doctors to release medical records to patients who ask for them, patients are reporting they have a hard time accessing" those records and that can lead to serious complications. The article unravels several cases in which obstacles to getting data resulted in serious consequences and ends with a tip sheet for patients hoping to extract their own data from physicians and hospitals (Cohen, 1/14).
Modern Healthcare: Some critics believe new federal rules for funding health providers' adoption of electronic medical records don't go far enough to help protect patients' privacy. Deborah Peel, a psychiatrist and patient privacy advocate, said the rule doesn't require physicians to adopt records that can accommodate several key federal laws regarding sharing, moving and releasing health information (Conn, 1/14).
Government Health IT: "Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed a lawsuit against Health Net of Connecticut, alleging the company failed to secure patient medical records and financial information prior to a security breach." The suit also says more than 400,000 affected consumers were not notified of the breach appropriately (Monegain, 1/14).
 This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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