What does the health care legislation mean for Health IT?
While millions of Americans watch the current health care reform debate in anticipation of discovering what benefits make it into the bill, many technology experts are paying close attention to a more obscure part of the legislation: Health care IT. As The Hill's Kim Hart reports, the current bill appoints an assistant secretary for health information technology and targets money toward "community-based telehealth resource centers." Though the bill does outline some ways in which the Health IT resources will be allocated, the bill calls for many of the details to be addressed by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology within the Department of Health and Human Services. But just as the stimulus calls for $20 billion for health IT projects, some are worrying about the vulnerabilities that are created when paper records are transferred online, including several experts on a Federal Trade Commission panel earlier this month.
Doctors offices and hospitals have been told to scrap paper records and start using digital formats to store patient information. But there are not yet standards or guidelines for how that data will be kept safe and secure from marketing companies that collect such tidbits about us to send us ads about, say, a new treatment, drug or facility.
There are several marketing companies that specialize in collecting information on Americans from several public sources, including social networks, surveys, and public records.
They told the FTC today that any medical information protected under HIPPA laws would not be shared or sold to third parties. They also said information they collect from patients is kept in very general categories--such as diabetes, allergies, etc.--"because the purpose is to get them marketing information about products and services they may or may not have been aware of," said Rick Erwin, president of Experian Marketing Services ...However, information patients give up voluntarily--on a pharmaceutical survey, for example--is up for grabs.
A few days after the FTC held the panel, Kalorama Information released a report that found that "hospitals and vendors are likely to take the lead in driving electronic health record adoption," and that electronic health records will become a $13.8 billion market by the end of this year.
The report notes that solo practitioners and small physician practices typically recoup the lowest amount of savings from EHR adoption. Therefore, investigators suggest that hospital systems and vendors will need to offer additional incentives to encourage such physicians to adopt the technology.
Though the details of health care and spending benefits in the new legislation is incredibly important, how the information doctors collect and share about us should not be overlooked. As we increasingly rely more and more on health IT when treating patients, the system becomes more reliant on the IT technology to be both safe and secure.