HHS needs to define an overall approach to protecting personal data as it works to develop a national health IT strategy, according to a new Government Accountability Office report, Technology Daily reports (Technology Daily, 6/20).
The report highlighted key challenges to protecting electronic patient data, including:
- Understanding and resolving legal and policy issues;
- Ensuring appropriate disclosure;
- Guaranteeing patients' rights to request access and changes to health data; and
- Adopting adequate measures for protecting health information (Hanson, Government Technology, 6/19).
Linda Koontz and Valerie Melvin, directors of information management issues for GAO, at a House Oversight and Government Reform Information Policy Subcommittee hearing said that while HHS has begun to tackle privacy issues, the process still is in the early stages. They added that HHS has not yet been able to adopt privacy solutions, including the use of identity proofing and user identification tools to protect patients' data within databases.
Koontz and Melvin in a January report called on HHS to seek privacy solutions. However, HHS disagreed with the report and said that it already had adopted a comprehensive privacy strategy,
Technology Daily reports (
Technology Daily, 6/20).
The GAO report is available
online. Note: You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the report.