Gregory Fowler reports: […] Several Washington Post readers recently wrote to Ask Help Desk about a consent form they were asked to sign while checking in for a doctor’s appointment. Most of us just hurriedly fill out whatever paperwork is put in front of us, but these eagle-eyed readers paused at this: “I hereby authorize…
Category: Healthcare
What can browser history inadvertently reveal about a person’s health?
Michele W. Berger One day a few years back, Penn emergency medicine physician Ari Friedman decided to see what would happen if he declined third-party cookies on a medical journal website. “I’d read enough about privacy and leaks and what was going on with the data that I wanted to turn them off,” says Friedman….
Don’t rely on a business associate agreement if the business associate is Iron Mountain (UPDATED)
Update of June 15: My tweets about the situation described below resulted in Iron Mountain’s Twitter team contacting their internal team, who called me. As of yesterday afternoon, the patient records that had supposedly been securely destroyed more than a year ago were finally securely destroyed. I was also told by customer service that the…
Poland Establishes ‘Terrifying’ Pregnancy Register After Banning Almost All Abortions
Julia Conley reports: A new government database tracking people’s pregnancies in Poland is sparking fears that medical data will be used to prosecute women who obtain abortion care in other countries or by getting abortion pills through the mail, and potentially to target women who have miscarriages. Health Minister Adam Niedzielski approved an ordinance last Friday expanding the…