Health Privacy

Date	Article Title	Publication	Author	Synopsis

7/10/2008	UPDATE: Privacy Protections Key to Electronic Records Bill	cnnmoney.com	Fawn Johnson	Representative Joe Barton told a Washington, D.C. audience that privacy protections being written into the proposed law will be the strongest in 5 to 10 years, and that he believes those provisions will stand as a model for other industries to follow.
7/3/2008	Mayor: Pregnancy numbers may violate privacy	Gloucester Daily Times	Patrick Anderson	Gloucester, Massachusetts mayor Carolyn Kirk is looking into whether the Gloucester High School (GHS) health clinic violated students' rights to privacy in releasing details about pregnancies. The school has been under the international news spotlight since the press first reported an increase in teen pregnancies among students.
6/29/2008	AG pushes for prescription drug database	Boston Globe	Associated Press	Drug abuse deaths have surpassed traffic accident deaths for the past two years, and New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte wants to help curb this growing problem by creating a centralized database to track commonly abused prescription drugs.
6/25/2008	Privacy provisions threaten health IT bill	Government Health IT	Nancy Ferris	After receiving voice vote approval from the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Health Subcommittee on Friday, a bill to upgrade privacy provisions for electronic health records (EHRs) moves to full committee.
6/25/2008	Prescription for Protecting Health Records	Globe and Mail	Michael Liedtke	About six million Americans today store their medical records online, but millions more have not embraced the idea yet, largely due to privacy concerns. But multiple players in the personal health record (PHR) arena have agreed on a set of guidelines for protecting patient privacy that they hope will assure consumers of their records' safety so they will begin using PHRs, which have been developed to offer consumers a more convenient method for managing their medical histories.
6/16/2008	HIPAA Privacy Rule Impedes Biomedical Research	The Earth Times	Association of Academic Health Centers	A report of the Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC) finds that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy rule has a negative impact on the advance of biomedical research.
6/15/2008	Area authorities hamstrung by HIPAA regulations	Green Bay Press Gazette	Andy Helesen	Some Wisconsin law enforcement officials are feeling bound by the privacy protections afforded by the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which limits the details that can be released about a patient's care and condition.
6/13/2008	Blue Cross plans Web access to records	The Boston Globe	Jeffrey Krasner	Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts has partnered with Google Health to offer patients an online tool for managing and transporting their medical records.
6/10/2008	Utah hospital billing records from over 2 million patients stolen	kutv.com	Associated Press	The billing records of 2.2 million University of Utah Hospital patients have been stolen. The records were contained on backup tapes in a gray metal box and were stolen from the vehicle of a courier who failed to deliver the box to a storage center immediately after picking it up from the hospital on June 1.
6/5/2008	Jerry Brown's Rx for drug abuse: the Internet	Los Angeles Times	Tim Reiterman	California Attorney General Jerry Brown wants to update the state's prescription monitoring system in order to more effectively fight prescription drug abuse.
6/5/2008	Your private health details may already be online	CNN.com	Elizabeth Cohen	Mammogram results. Birth control preferences. Prescription drugs. A CNN medical correspondent reports how she stumbled across her own health data online and in detail.
5/30/2008	Senate bill OKs druggists' sharing patient files	San Francisco Chronicle	Elizabeth Fernandez	The California Senate last week approved a bill to allow pharmacies to share patient prescription information with third-parties.
5/29/2008	Task force to review UCSF data security	San Francisco Chronicle	Elizabeth Fernandez	The University of California-San Francisco has developed a task force of institutional leaders to conduct a comprehensive review of actions needed to protect sensitive data.
5/28/2008	Bill would let pharmacies sell medical records	San Francisco Chronicle	Elizabeth Fernandez	The California state Senate is expected to vote on a bill today that would allow pharmacies to sell confidential patient information to firms that market for pharmaceutical companies
5/28/2008	Proposal To Strengthen Health Information Technology Released	Government Technology		Draft legislation to encourage the adoption of Health Information Technology (HIT) was released last week by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
5/27/2008	Hospitals, patients clash on privacy rights	San Francisco Chronicle	Elizabeth Fernandez	Advancement programs have become critical in this day where one third of the nation's hospitals operate in the red and another third barely break even.
5/23/2008	Proliferating HIFAA complaints and medical record breaches	SC Magazine	Sue Marquette Poremba	While alleged violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are on the rise, the number of complaints being resolved continues to decline.
5/19/2008	Google Makes Health Service Publicly Available	The Associated Press	Rachel Metz	After completing a pilot program with volunteer patients at the Cleveland Clinic, Google made available to the public its service for aggregating medical records. Google Health gives users electronic access to their health histories and lets them link information from various entities involved in their health care, including pharmacies, diagnostic labs and providers.
5/15/2008	Privacy Protections Will Be Added to Wired for Health Care Quality Bill	Government Health IT	Nancy Ferris	Government Health IT reports that measures to better protect patient privacy will be added to the Wired for Health Care Quality Act. The bill was held up in the Senate due to Senator Patrick Leahy's concerns about the security and privacy of health records.
5/13/2008	Privacy advocates seek to protect prescription information	Government Health IT	Nancy Ferris	Concerned groups are asking Congress to include privacy provisions into a proposed e-prescribing mandate or else not pass the legislation. The Coalition for Patient Privacy and 25 other organizations co-signed a letter to lawmakers asking for 11 protections to help protect the privacy of prescription information.
5/13/2008	More tied to USLA snooping	Los Angeles Times	Charles Ornstein	The Los Angeles Times reports that as many as 14 more employees of the UCLA Medical Center have been implicated in the scandal that saw the health records of some well-known patients compromised by unauthorized access.
5/12/2008	Healthcare 2015: Without change, not a pretty picture	Wisconsin Technology Network	Joe Vanden Plas	Speaking at a meeting of the Wisconsin Technology Network Jim Adams, executive director of IBM's Center for Healthcare Management told attendees that the status quo for the healthcare industry is unsustainable, but transformation will not be easy.
5/8/2008	Maryland Court of Appeals Weighs Patients' Privacy Rights	Red Orbit	Steve Lash	Maryland's highest court is weighing a case brought forward by the Maryland State Board of Physicians' against a psychiatrist who, citing privacy concerns, refused to surrender patient records requested by the board until a year after the request.
5/7/2008	Opinion: Benefits of personal health records will eclipse privacy concerns	Computer World	Jay Cline	Jay Cline predicts that in five years, the privacy debate over personal health records will be over and we'll all be storing our medical histories electronically in a central location.
4/29/2008	Patients often struggle for access to medical records	USA Today	Robert Davis	USA Today recounts the difficulties some patients and families have endured in attempting to gain access to medical records, especially following unfortunate events.
4/26/2008	Should you trust your health records to Google and Microsoft?	PC World	Erik Larkin	While a number of companies are in the process of developing electronic health record systems that would give patients greater control and access to their medical records, the success of any of these systems would require the establishment of trust between patient and vendor.
4/29/2008	Are your medical records at risk?	Wall Street Journal	Sarah Rubenstein	Electronic health records offer the promise of convenience and security to patients everywhere, but an ongoing slew of privacy breaches in the healthcare sector may undermine efforts toward this.
4/28/2008	Genetic Data Bill Lacks Privacy Protections, Advocate Warns	iHealthBeat		Yesterday's Daily Dashboard reported on the Senate's passing of the Genetic Nondiscrimination Act, which would protect people whose genetic testing reveals a susceptibility to serious disease from discriminatory employment and insurance practices based on those results. Today, at least one privacy advocate says the bill would not stop employers or insurers from doing that.
4/26/2008	U.S Senate Passes Genetic Anti-Discrimination Bill	The Washington Post		In a unanimous vote, the U.S. Senate passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, a bill to protect people who learn through genetic testing that they might be susceptible to serious disease.
4/25/2008	Health-Care company, state deny personal data was at risk	Wisconsin State Journal	Scott Bauer	Following a report by a Wisconsin state official claiming to have identified a security breach exposing sensitive healthcare data for about 240,000 senior citizens and disabled individuals, Harmony Information Systems said the information was never at risk, and that the person who reported the breach was mistaken.
4/22/2008	Sneakwrapped medical forms	Info World	Ed Foster	The Gripe Line blog at InfoWorld.com tells of one reader's experience while preparing to undergo a colonoscopy. While filling out routine forms prior to the procedure, one form caught the patient's eye and, after a careful read, the form appeared to be an agreement to share family medical history and personally identifiable information--including Social Security number--with a third-party genetic research organization for the purpose of a possible consultation.
4/17/2008	Warning on Storage of Health Records	New York Times	Steve Lohr	Two leading medical researchers and proponents of electronic patient records have raised concerns about large companies not bound by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) creating the electronic health record market.
4/12/2008	Doctors get off lighter in UCLA snooping case	Los Angeles Times	Charles Ornstein	When it was discovered that staff at UCLA Medical Center had violated the law and hospital policy by accessing the medical records of pop diva Britney Spears, the consequences for non-doctors were more severe. Of 53 employees not associated with her care who looked at Spears' medical files, 18 were fired, resigned or retired; none of those who lost their jobs were physicians.
4/9/2008	White House science and tech panel will call for broader privacy law	Government Health IT	Nancy Ferris	The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) wants Congress to amend the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Specifically, in a report being prepared on personalized medicine, the council will call for better protection of genetic information.
4/9/2008	Effectiveness of medical privacy law is questioned	Los Angeles Times	Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar	A decade since the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was passed, the law's effectiveness is being called into question by lawyers and advocates who point to the startling fact that, of more than 34,000 privacy violation complaints filed under the law's provision, there have been only about a half-dozen prosecutions.
4/8/2008	Schwarzenegger says his medical records were accessed, too	Los Angeles Times	Evan Halper	California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he will continue pressuring hospitals to better protect patients' privacy.
4/3/2008	Sponsors seek to move on health IT bill	Government Health IT	Nancy Ferris	A bill intended to enhance the adoption and implementation of a nationwide interoperable health information network is stalled due to disagreement in the Senate on how to ensure the privacy of electronic health records.
4/3/2008	Privacy advocate's health data is stolen	MSNBC	Associated Press	Congressman Joe Barton, a founder of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, was among the patients whose data was compromised in the recent theft of a National Institutes of Health laptop computer.
3/17/2008	Medical Records Go Digital	Time	Kathleen Kingsbury	This week's merger of UK-based Misys PLC with Chicago-based Allscripts will create a single company that provides electronic health record (EHR) services to about a third of the U.S. market, building momentum for the push toward an EHR standard in the $20 billion market.
3/18/2008	Why Hospitals Want Your Credit Report	Wall Street Journal	Sarah Rubenstein	In a trend that has some people concerned, more and more hospitals are looking into the credit records of their patients to gauge ability to pay. Hospital administrators say the credit checks are to determine which individuals are worth pursuing in the event of unpaid medical bills.
3/15/2008	UCLA workers snooped in Spears' medical records	Los Angeles Times	Charles Ornstein	The UCLA Medical Center is taking action following the discovery that employees at the hospital accessed the records of troubled pop star Britney Spears without authorization.
3/13/2008	House Kills Medical Privacy Bill	New Hampshire Business Review	Bob Sanders	A bill to extend HIPAA by placing more privacy restrictions on electronic medical records failed in the New Hampshire House, 166-150.
3/13/2008	The Impostor in the ER	Self Magazine	Richard Rys	As the problem of medical identity theft becomes more widespread it is becoming clear that the potential consequences extend well beyond financial. While many cases of medical identity theft involve insurance fraud or access to controlled pharmaceuticals, falsified use of medical identity can have life-or-death implications if the affected patient's records contain information from a fraudulent user that may result in an improper diagnosis or treatment.
3/10/2008	Health files are sold as scrap paper to Utahn	Desert News	Aaron Falk	The medical records of 27 Central Florida Regional Hospital patients wound up in a Utah fourth-grade classroom as scrap paper after an apparent shipping blunder.
3/7/2008	Web 2.0: A Promising Prescription	TechNewsWorld	Sonia Arrison	Is a market-driven system for keeping health records better than one run by the government? Yes, says Sonia Arrison, writing for TechNewsWorld.
2/26/2008	Medical Data Targeted By Foreign Hackers	Cnet News.com	Robert Vamosi	The Department of Homeland Security has said that databases containing medical records of American citizens are popular targets for attack by foreign hackers.
2/25/2008	Google's Medical Record Plan Gets Mixed Reception	Newsday	Kathleen Kerr	Newsday in New York reports that, while the existence of electronic health records is not new, some doctors are expressing concern about putting sensitive medical information online.
2/25/2008	Washington State Considers Barring Data Mining By Pharmas	The Tacoma News Tribune	Niki Sullivan	The Tacoma News Tribune reports that the Washington State legislature is considering a ban on medical data mining by pharmaceutical sales organizations. The bill, which Speaker Frank Chopp says has a good chance of passing in the current session, would prevent drug companies from obtaining prescription data for the purpose of marketing their products to medical offices.
2/24/2008	Insurance Bias Fears Keep Some From DNA Tests	New York Times	Amy Harmon	Patients concerned about potential genetic health issues are avoiding DNA testing out of fear that they will be denied insurance, according to The New York Times. The report describes the plight of one patient who paid for a private DNA test, then struggled with a decision to disclose the results to her doctor when it revealed a high probability for contracting a form of emphysema.
2/24/2008	Privacy Group Aims For Model State Law in 2009	Government Health IT	Brian Robinson	A multi-state collaborative seeking ways to align its health information privacy rules to make it easier to share data across health information exchanges is aiming for a demonstration law that states could use as a model in 2009.
2/21/2008	Google Enters Healthcare Data Market	CNN.com		Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that's likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader.
2/20/2008	New California Law Strengthens Health Data Privacy	Mondaq	Shirley Morrigan, Andrew B. Serwin, Leean Habte, Michael Scarano and Lisa Acevedo	A new paper published by Mondaq and authored by lawyers from Foley Lardner says that, by extending the provisions of California's data breach notification law to include organizations dealing with health care data, the state has strengthened the overall security of healthcare data.
2/20/2008	Health data storage sites might not be secure	San Francisco Chronicle	Deborah Gage	The World Privacy Forum is warning consumers about the potential pitfalls of using newly popular services that consolidate personal health records - especially when they're kept by companies that are not subject to current federal regulations on privacy and security.
2/17/2008	Prescription Drug Database Proposed	The Peninsula Clarion	Hal Spence	A measure now before the Alaska Senate would authorize the Board of Pharmacy to create and keep a detailed record of which Alaskans are using prescription drugs.
2/12/2008	N.J. Insurer Uses Web Photos To Deny Healthcare Claim	Insurance & Technology	Nathan Conz	New Jersey health insurance provider Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield has denied a medical claim filed by a family whose 15-year old daughter suffers from an eating disorder because, according to the company, photos the girl posted to social networking sites suggest that her problem is psychological in nature, not biological, and therefore does not qualify under the policy's provisions.
2/10/2008	New Hampshire Considers Stricter Health Record Rules	Fosters.com	Victoria Guay	According to Foster's Daily Democrat, the New Hampshire State Legislature is considering a bill that would impose stricter limits on the use and security of healthcare data. Sponsored by State Rep. Cindy Rosenwald, House Bill 1587 addresses security issues related to the migration of health records from paper to electronic format.
2/6/2008	Medical Breach Disclosure Law Will Be Influential	CSO Magazine	Katherine Walsh	The passage of AB 1298, the new medical data breach notification law in California, will have an effect similar to that of SB 1386, the state's landmark data breach notification law.
1/30/2008	Wife Of Google Co-Founder Launches Gene Sleuthing Service	Telegraph.co.uk	Felix Lowe	Anne Wojcicki, wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, has launched a service that seeks to catalog the genetic code of its customers in order to provide information related to heritage, genealogy, and even disease risk profile.
1/23/2008	Digital Health Records Increase Privacy Risk	Financial Post	Jim Middlemiss	As Canada's healthcare industry moves increasingly toward digital record keeping, the medical privacy of the country's citizens are being put at greater risk.
1/23/2008	Commissioner Cavoukian Backs Medical RFID	Globe and Mail		Ontario Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian has come out in support of the use of RFID in the healthcare industry and, along with tech firm HP, has published a guide to help healthcare professionals better understand the many uses and benefits of the technology.
1/16/2008	Vermont Prescription Data Base "Goes Too Far"	Vermont Press Bureau	Daniel Barlow	A statewide database filled with information on every prescription filled in Vermont, created two years ago to help stop illegal drug prescriptions, potentially puts the medical privacy of Vermonters at risk, lawmakers are now saying.
1/14/2008	E-Prescriptions Will Present Privacy Challenge This Year	Healthcare IT News	Diana Manos	An article in Healthcare IT News predicts that Congress this year will attempt to address e-prescriptions as part of a federal effort to digitize healthcare in America.
1/12/2008	Australia One Step Closer To National Health ID	ABC News		A new contract signed last week between Medicare and the National e-Health Transition Authority brings Australia one step closer to a national heathcare identification system.
1/10/2008	BC Lawmakers Unaware Privacy Provision Would Hamper Research	The Vancouver Sun	Pamela Fayerman	Lawmakers are saying that they were unaware of the negative effects on healthcare research resulting from a 2004 amendment to British Columbia's provincial privacy law.
1/9/2008	Former Amgen Sales Reps Sue Over Dismissal	Associated Press	Linda A. Johnson	Pharmaceutical concern Amgen faces lawsuits from two former sales reps who claim they lost their jobs because they refused to participate in sales practices that violated patient privacy.
1/9/2008	Health Research Hampered By Privacy Laws	The Vancouver Sun	Pamela Fayerman	An amendment to the 2003 British Columbia Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act is hampering progress is a number of critical healthcare studies in the province.
12/17/2007	Nonprofit Company Expands Effort To Launch Digital Medical Records	Australian IT	Jennifer Hewett	The National E-Health Transition Authority, a non-profit company, has been exploring the launch of e-medical records for the past 2 ½ years. However, an independent review of the company's efforts determined that the health and IT professionals did not consult broadly enough about its plans.
12/12/2007	Influential Federal Privacy Committee Proposes Massive Changes in HIPAA's Protections for Personal Health Information	Drug Benefit News		The National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, the nation's top advisory board to the federal government on healthcare privacy, is recommending an overhaul in current laws and rules to bolster protections for personal health information.
12/11/2007	Adoption law to be amended	Globe and Mail	Chinta Puxley	Amended legislation would prevent some adopted people in Ontario from getting access to basic information about their health history, according to advocates for adoptees.
11/28/2007	An Interview With Dr. Deborah Peel	Government Health IT		Dr. Deborah Peel, Founder and Chair of Patient Privacy Rights, discusses in this webcast -- taken from an interview with GovernmentHealthIT -- why she believes the right of patients to control who sees their medical records information is vital to the adoption of health IT.
11/16/2007	Senator Seeks To Add Privacy Amendment To Health IT Bill	Government Executive.com	Aliya Sternstein	Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is pushing an amendment to a Senate Health IT bill that would give patients the right to prevent third-party access to their records. The amendment also would allow patients to opt out of any electronic system and set limits regarding who may access records.
11/14/2007	HIPAA Experts Differ On Law's Impact On Patient Privacy	The Journal Times	David Steinkraus	More than 10 years after HIPAA's passage, experts continue to discuss and debate the law's impact and effectiveness.
11/13/2007	Clinical Scientists: Privacy Law Impedes Research	Reuters	Julie Steenhuysen	A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that 70 percent of clinical scientists surveyed said HIPAA has made research more difficult. Furthermore, almost 40 percent "said HIPAA has added to the cost of research and half said it has slowed the pace of research,".
11/8/2007	Opinion: Hiding Behind HIPAA	Roanoake Times	Shanna Flowers	Shanna Flowers explores what she views as the extreme uses of HIPAA's privacy rules.
11/7/2007	Report: Privacy Issues Threaten Viability Of Health Information Exchanges	Healthcare IT News	Diana Manos	The American Health Information Management Association and the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for health Information Technology released a report this week that concludes that state public-private health information exchanges are making strides, but privacy continues to hinder their success.
11/5/2007	Report: RHIOs Not The Answer To Advancing Healthcare Information Technology	Healthcare IT News	Diana Manos	The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation has issued a report on the effectiveness of Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIOs), which concludes that the "strategy of building the network from the bottom up by establishing many RHIOs throughout the country is not working.'

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