Electronic Health Records Bill Fails to Pass Patient Privacy Gains National Attention
Congratulations! Thanks to the involvement of our members and coalition partners, Americans' private medical records will not be exposed over electronic health networks.
The 109th Congress, 2nd Session ended without passing controversial Health IT legislation to create electronic health records and expose Americans' most personal information to abuse by credit reporting agencies, insurance companies, drug companies and employers.
Thank you to all the activists, partners and supporters who spoke up for restoring Americans' right to medical privacy, spread the word about medical privacy dangers and helped block this controversial bill.
With your help, patient privacy is now part of the national debate on Health IT legislation, discussions about electronic health systems and the development of policies to protect privacy. Looking forward to 2007, we anticipate many new opportunities to restore and strengthen Americans' medical privacy:
* Include basic privacy principles that allow patients to control who can see and use their medical records in any and all federal health IT bills * Promote consumer-controlled and owned health banks and medical data repositories that allow consumers to control who can see and use their medical records. * Include patient-oriented and consumer-oriented voices in the regional and state-level health IT governance boards developing health IT policy and providing oversight of health information exchanges. * Continue to raise awareness about the failure of HIPAA to provide the privacy protections Americans expect at regional, state and federal levels.
It has been a remarkable Congressional session. We opened a national dialogue about the need for patient privacy, developed a broad-based non-partisan coalition working on patient privacy and mobilized a critical base of citizens fighting for their right to control who sees and uses their most sensitive information.
We look forward to continuing to work with all our partners and allies. Together we can restore our privacy.