Bloomberg News (6/5, Robertson) reports that while “hospitals in the U.S. pledge to keep a patient’s health background confidential,” states including Washington and New York “are putting privacy at risk by selling records that can be used to link a person’s identity to medical conditions using public information.” The article explains, “the potential for a patient’s hospital record to be made public by anyone buying data compiled by states adds to ways privacy is vulnerable in an age of digitized health record keeping and increasingly sophisticated hacking.” Still, “the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, which investigates HIPAA violations, has not received complaints about companies identifying patients, said Rachel Seeger, a spokeswoman for the agency.”
Related Links:
— “States’ Hospital Data for Sale Puts Privacy in Jeopardy, “Jordan Robertson, Bloomberg News, June 04, 2013.