Government health IT advisers examine privacy policies

One of the latest hurdles government advisers helping to shape health information technology policy must jump is addressing the amount of control patients should have over their own records, Modern Healthcare reports. "Patient consent for movement and use of records 'is absolutely a part of this framework,' said Deven McGraw, chair of the Privacy and Security Workgroup of the Health IT Policy Committee. Still, patient consent should not be the linchpin of healthcare information privacy, she argued at the committee's May 19 meeting, 'because then you've asked the patient to bear that burden.'"

The policy should set "specific privacy and security-protection policies and technologies in all forms of electronic health-information exchange," she said. It should encrypt messages about health information, and include "strong" enforcement provisions (Conn, 6/2).

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