Healthcare IT Workgroup Tackles Privacy

The Health Information Technology (HIT) Policy Committee's Strategic Planning Workgroup spent much of its meeting this week debating how best to balance privacy concerns with the need for an open, "learning" healthcare system.

The group shouldn't put barriers in the way of people "interested in sharing their information and willing to take that risk," said Don Detmer, retired president and CEO of the American Medical Informatics Association. "We should not force privacy to be more important than health." Just as people have the right to donate blood and organs but aren't forced to do so, Detmer said, they should also have the right to share their health information and even elect to receive a unique patient identifier. Jodi Daniel, director of the Office of Policy and Research at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), commented that while the government can't take up such a charge, there's nothing preventing private sector entities from doing so. Detmer went on to stress that any regulations the government enacts should make it easy for citizens to do the "altruistic" thing--to share their health information for use in research and clinical trials.