From the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons: The House of Representatives has hidden inside a trillion dollar “must pass” spending bill, a provision that eliminates the prohibition on the use of federal funding to assign all Americans a unique medical identifier. Former Congressman Ron Paul, M.D., got that prohibition enacted in 1998. Update: the…
Category: Healthcare
House votes to overturn decades-old ban on national patient identifier
From the while-you-were-looking-over-there-here’s-what-they-were-doing-over-here dept., Rebecca Pifer reports: Debate around establishing a country-wide method to link patients to their records has been going on for some time now, pitting the medical community, IT vendors and payers against some lawmakers and third-party groups concerned about privacy. The House nod on the measure by Rep. Bill Foster, D-Illinois, to…
UK: Universities to trawl through students’ social media to look for suicide risk, under new project
Meanwhile…. from back on the road that is paved with good intentions but goes to the wrong place, Camilla Turner reports: Universities are to trawl through students’ social media to look for signs that they may be suicidal, as part of a new project funded by the higher education watchdog. The new scheme, backed by…
Vermont Court Finds Patient Can Sue Hospital and an Employee for Breach of Confidentiality
Jason C. Gavejian and Maya Atrakchi of JacksonLewis write: In a landmark ruling, the Vermont Supreme Court recently held that a patient had standing to sue both the hospital at which she was a patient and the employee who attended to her, for negligent disclosure of her personal health information to a third-party. Neither the…