ACLU Urges Congress to Define Medical Privacy as Patient Control of Electronic Health Records

In addition, the ACLU urges the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health to consider how privacy protections will be built into new, high tech health systems as it hears testimony this Thursday. The subcommittee announced that protecting patient privacy and information security would be among the issues discussed at its July 24 hearing regarding health information technology. Other issues include potential costs and benefits, clinical capabilities and incentive effectiveness.

The following can be attributed to Timothy Sparapani, ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel:

“As part of the transition from paper to electronic health records, Congress should go for the gold standard of medical privacy. Lawmakers must define medical privacy as patient control of electronic medical records. Ideally, when any company wants to use patient records for a secondary purpose – one that does not involve treatment, bill payment or reimbursement – it should require patient consent.