The most well-known patient privacy advocate voiced her support for the Dept. of Health and Human Services' new patient privacy policy.
Deborah Peel, MD, founder and board member of the Patient Privacy Rights, said Secretary Sebelius' announcement was pro-patient and signaled a shift in the Obama Administration's stance on who controls patient health information.
It may be a first that Peel has expressed support so enthusiastically for a federal privacy policy. But what has her excited is the unequivocal statement by Secretary Sebelius that the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for changes to HIPAA under the HITECH Act follows the Administration-wide commitment to ensure that no one has access to a patient's health information unless the patient consents.
Sebelius' comments acknowledge that patient trust is a critical component to the success of EHR adoption and health information exchange acceptance. Patient trust is, in fact, a deal-breaker with health IT adoption. If we get patient privacy advocates and government privacy policies on the same page, we're on our way to widespread health IT adoption.
