Privacy & Security
A Department of Health and Human Services advisory group has proposed broad steps that healthcare organizations should take in order to establish their corporate identities for the simple exchanges of patient information that will be required under the first stage of meaningful use.
Patient Privacy Rights, the health privacy watchdog, has enlisted the help of Zogby International to conduct an online survey of more than 2,000 adults to identify their views on privacy, access to health information, and healthcare IT. The results were overwhelmingly in favor of individual choice and control over personal health information.
One of the largest recent security breaches of personal health information (PHI), involving 280,000 individuals, is on the surface a "pretty low-risk scenario," says one privacy expert. But, he acknowledges, "these things are like an onion: the more layers you peel back, the stinkier it gets."
It has been almost two years since Congress passed the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) – an unprecedented piece of legislation lawmakers hoped would catapult the advance of healthcare IT.
The nation's healthcare IT chief, David Blumenthal, MD, acknowledged that achieving meaningful use of health IT would be hard work, and then told his audience of more than 600 health system and hospital CIOs and IT managers there would be even harder work ahead.
The European Commission’s Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) is a flagship initiative of the EU 2020 strategy, which focuses on sustainable growth through ICT. eHealth is a key part of it, said Flora Girogio of the EC’s ICT for Health unit, speaking at the Global eHealth Forum in Hamburg today. The DAE will develop the necessary infrastructure.
Survey data consistently show the public supports health IT but is very concerned about the risks health IT poses to individual privacy. Contrary to the views expressed by some, privacy is not the obstacle to health IT. In fact, appropriately addressing privacy and security is key to realizing the technologyʼs potential benefits.
Health IT leaders are slated to testify before a congressional committee Thursday regarding interoperability and security standards for electronic health records.
This past May, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson delivered a speech on the subject electronic waste (e-waste), which she called one of the most pressing global environmental priorities for the U.S. Too often, she said, America's e-waste "ends up illegally overseas in developing countries - India, Africa - where labor is cheaper...and workers are often less safe," she said.
Bonnie Cassidy, vice president of HIM product management at Reston, Va.-based QuadraMed and the president-elect of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), sat down with Healthcare IT News at AHIMA's 82nd annual convention and exhibit to talk about the importance of the health information management profession, and her vision for the future.