October 28th, 2011 by DavidHarlow in Opinion
No Comments »
I’m back from my pilgrimage to Rochester, MN for the Third Annual Health Care Social Media Summit at the Mayo Clinic, presented by Ragan Communications. I had a great time, and want to share the experience with you. So please take a look at the archived #mayoragan tweets, my presentation on health care social media and the law, and my blog posts about the pre-conference and the summit itself posted at HealthWorks Collective. Here are some excerpts:
Mayo Ragan Social Media Summit Pre-Conference:
A recurring theme in my hallway conversations [today] was that it is impossible to transplant a successful program from one location to another without taking into account myriad local conditions (social media program, heart transplant program – same problem). As I always say to folks Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
October 10th, 2011 by DavidHarlow in Health Policy, News
No Comments »
On September 14, HHS released for comment draft lab results regulations that will, if finalized, effectively bathe the Achilles’ heel of health data in the River Styx of ¡data liberación! All lab results will be made available to patients, just like all other health data. (See the HHS presser and YouTube video from the recent consumer health summit. Todd Park, HHS CTO, is also the chief activist for what he calls ¡data liberación!)
Forgive me for mixing my metaphors (or whatever it is I just did), but even though there are just a couple dozen words of regulations at issue here, this is a big deal.
When HIPAA established a federal right for each individual to obtain a copy of his or her health records, in paper or electronic format, there were a couple of types of records called out as specifically exempt from this general rule of data liberation, in the HIPAA Privacy Rule, 45 CFR § 164.524(a)(1): psychotherapy notes, information compiled for use in an administrative or court proceeding, and lab results from what is known as a CLIA lab or a CLIA-exempt lab (including “reference labs,” as in your specimens get referred there by the lab that collects them, or freestanding labs that a patient may be referred to for a test; these are not the labs that are in-house at many doctors’ offices, hospitals and other health care facilities — the in-house labs are part of the “parent” provider organization and their results are part of the parents’ health records already subject to HIPAA).
(“CLIA” stands for the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988, which established quality standards for certain laboratory testing.)
This carveout of lab results from patient-accessible records has long been a thorn in the side of the e-patient. This month, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
September 11th, 2011 by DavedeBronkart in News
No Comments »
Big news from Down Under: the Sydney Morning Herald reports that a group of fifty consumer health advocates has unanimously backed an “opt-out” process for enrollment in electronic health records, reversing their previous position.
The issue is whether by default all patients have an EHR. “Opt-out” means you’re in by default – your records will be stored electronically – and you can opt out if you want. “Opt-in” means you do not have an EHR unless you specifically ask for one.
The group, the Consumer Health Forum, cites evidence from the neighboring country of New Zealand, in which Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at e-Patients.net*
September 10th, 2011 by Berci in Uncategorized
No Comments »
One of the best initiatives in social media and healthcare I’ve recently seen is definitely the Radboud REshape Academy.
Finding for our path to migrate into real participatory healthcare we come across a lot of interesting people, information, innovations and most of all questions.
Right from the beginning we started to share, with our network. We have been doing this with our conferences, our research, our lectures and through field trips made to our Radboud REshape & Innovation Centre for HC institutions, insurers, government and other people interested in changing healthcare. And of course our Innovation Centre.
In setting up The Radboud REshape Academy (@REshapeAcademy on twitter) we would like to create Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
June 16th, 2011 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Opinion
No Comments »
This post from Kelly Young on Howard Luks’ blog asks when patients cross the line with respect to their own advocacy. It’s worth a peek.
The question of boundaries between doctor and patient is interesting. All of my patients are empowered in some way. The extent and level of that empowerment is personal. On our own there are few lines and little with respect to boundaries. We have effectively unlimited access to information and resources. And how far we go to look after ourselves and our kids has few limits.
But when we enter into a relationship with a provider, we’re no longer alone. It’s unreasonable for a provider to tell a patient Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
