Privacy, cooperation keys for consumer participation in EMRs

The growth (or lack of growth) in consumer involvement in electronic health records remained a key topic at the AHIMA meeting in San Diego. The Markle Foundation's Carol Diamond and the Health Privacy Project's Emily Stewart both stressed that, despite latent consumer demand for EMRs, they will only get on board if they are convinced that their privacy is protected. Consumers are especially wary of both health plans and employers misusing their information. Scott Wallace, from the National Alliance for Health Information Technology, argued that we shouldn't let concern for privacy get in the way of the benefits of spreading EMRs. He and Mark Frisse of Vanderbilt both showed that there is real progress being made in developing standards for interoperability at the national level and particularly in Tennessee, where several major organizations are sharing data in several different regional experiments.

The most hopeful aspect was the presentation about the Katrinahealth.org site. Several different public and private organizations (convened by Markle) managed to create a Web site giving authorized physicians access to Katrina evacuees' medication records from multiple sources, including PBMs and retail drug chains.

- see this report from The Health Care Blog
- see the Web site for Katrinahealth.org

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