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Health Law

: HIPAA Health Law & Technology

Best Practices for HealthVault and Google Health

By Helen Oscislawski

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At the end of June, Investor's Business Daily reported that Google, Microsoft, Aetna, Blue Cross/ and 27 other private organizations "agreed on" ground rules for protecting the privacy of the sensitive information" contained in personal health records (PHRs). The report indicated that the group has been working together for the past 18 months, and on Wednesday, June 26th, released the "hundreds of pages long" framework, which "starts with the idea that the information in a PHR is the user's to control -- and spells out how to guard it."

The "best practices" agreed upon by this private workgroup are posted online. Among them, is a policy that audit trails should be conducted so that consumers can see who is looking at their records. In addition, the workgroup recommended that insurers, employers, and others be prohibited from seeing the information without the individual's prior authorization.

The point that PHR repositories, like the ones being offered by Google and Microsoft, are not subject to HIPAA is a point that has been focused in on by a number of opponents of these models. However, in developing and releasing these best practices, I think that these companies may persuade more people to store their medical records online by offering reassurance that information kept in their online filing cabinets will be kept as confidential and secure as when maintained by entities subject to federal privacy laws, like HIPAA.

Full post as published by HIPAA Health Law & Technology on June 30, 2008 (boomark / email).