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Feds Plan For 35 Agencies To Collect, Share, Use Health Records of Americans

Posted by Soulskill on from the it's-a-party-and-everyone's-invited dept.

cold fjord writes: The Weekly Standard reports, "This week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the release of the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2015-2020, which details the efforts of some 35 departments and agencies of the federal government and their roles in the plan to 'advance the collection, sharing, and use of electronic health information to improve health care, individual and community health, and research.' ... Now that HHS has publicly released the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan, the agency is seeking the input from the public before implementation. The plan is subject to two-month period of public comment before finalization. The comment period runs through February 6, 2015." Among the many agencies that will be sharing records besides Health and Human Services are: Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Justice and Bureau of Prison, Department of Labor, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Personnel Management, National Institute of Standards and Technology.

3 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. Not to mention by JRV31 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The NSA, CIA, and FBI.

    1. Re:Not to mention by dywolf · · Score: 2, Informative

      I am quite sure you have no clue what you are talking about.
      The myths about HIPAA and teh ACA refuse to die because of ignorance like yours.

      -For starters they do not and will not haev access to your private health information.
      -HIPAA largely doesnt aplpy to the ACA itself or mechanisms.
      -specifically HIPAA does not apply to the exchange website, which is the only part of the ACA that even uses your personal information, but notably does NOT use your private health information.
      -All ACA does is provide some incentive for helath providers to transition to electronic records.
      -Your health records and privacy laws covering them, including HIPAA, are not changed under the ACA

      I say again: you are clueless about both HIPAA and the ACA.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  2. Re:FUD and kneejerk reactions by xanthines-R-yummy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes, the National Institutes of Health already has an anonymized database of the health records from patients in their clinical trials and a company called Explorys (no, I don't work for them, either), is doing something similar on a larger scale across multiple hospital systems. Having CMS and HHS involved to add more data is definitely a good thing, if done correctly. Links below.

    http://btris.nih.gov/
    https://www.explorys.com/
    https://www.explorys.com/about...