Can you keep a medical secret?
Move to online records pits your privacy against a doctor's need to know
Indianapolis Star
March 23, 2008
By Daniel Lee
Does a doctor treating you for a broken leg need to know you had an abortion 20 years ago?
Should your dentist have access to information about your visit to a psychiatrist?
Such questions are moving center stage as patients' medical records increasingly are transferred from manila folders to the Internet, allowing easier access to medical history that the patient may not want known.
In one of the latest examples of the debate over how much patient history doctors should have access to, Dr. Marc Overhage, chief executive of Indiana Health Information Exchange, cast the lone dissenting vote as a 17-member federal panel recommended that patients get more control over electronic health records.
Overhage is a member of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, which sent its recommendations to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last month. The panel encouraged HHS to give patients the power to sequester from their online medical records certain sensitive information such as domestic violence-related treatment, reproductive health and genetic information.
"I certainly believe it's a patient's right to protect and control their information," said Overhage, a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Read the complete story here: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080323/BUSINESS/803230394/1175/LOCAL0102
Learn more about the IU School of Medicine here: http://medicine.iu.edu/
