On Tuesday, Google Health endorsed the Declaration of Health Data Rights, a set of principles promoting patient access to electronic health records, Healthcare IT News reports (Merrill, Healthcare IT News, 6/24).
Earlier this week, numerous advocates, physicians, software groups and bloggers released the declaration as part of HealthDataRights.org, a Web site designed to harness social media tools to build support for consumer-driven health care (iHealthBeat, 6/23).
The declaration states that individuals have the right to:
- Access their medical records;
- Know the source of their health data;
- Obtain a copy of their records; and
- Share their health information with others (Claburn, "Grok on Google," Information Week, 6/23).
Roni Zeiger, Google Health's project manager, and Missy Krasner, Google Health's product marketing manager, said they hope the declaration will "raise public awareness about the rights already protected under HIPAA and also help drive the public debate towards increasing patient access and control over their own health data."
They added that health data rights could help boost physician-patient communication and reduce medical errors (Healthcare IT News, 6/24).