Blogger's Note: click on the pdf link for letter from AHA (as below):
"A firestorm has been triggered by the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) 68 page letter (PDF) commenting on the Stage 2 Meaningful Use proposed requirements."
"Our members are particularly concerned with the proposed objective to provide patients with the ability to view, download and transmit large volumes of protected health information via the Internet (a “patient portal”). The AHA believes that this objective is not feasible as proposed, raises significant security issues, and goes well beyond current technical capacity. We also believe that CMS should not include this objective because the Office of Civil Rights, and not CMS, regulates how health care providers and other covered entities fulfill their obligations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), including the obligation to give patients access to their health records. Please see our detailed comments for more
recommendations on changes to specific objectives and measures."
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Hospital Association "Declares War" on Patient Empowerment:
A firestorm has been triggered by the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) 68 page letter (PDF) commenting on the Stage 2 Meaningful Use proposed requirements. The reaction has been swift from various individuals and organizations focused on patient rights and empowerment.
Consumer Rights and Patient Empowerment Organizations also weighed in.
- The Center for Democracy & Technology picked apart the legal “hail mary” that the AHA was using in their response. See Hospital Association Fights Digital Data Access for Patients for more.
- The Society for Participatory Medicine stated the following. “Patient engagement is the cornerstone of a successful, cost effective, and high-quality health care system,” said Daniel Z. Sands, MD, the Society’s president and a practicing internist. “Those goals cannot be achieved unless we give patients access to their own health information and encourage them to use it.”
