I Wonder Why We, In OZ, Do Not Have A Right Like This Right Now?

This appeared last week.Call it data liberation day: Patients can now access all their health records digitally  ByCasey RossOct. 6, 2022The American Revolution had July 4. The allies had D-Day. And now U.S. patients, held down for decades by information hoarders, can rally around a new turning point, October 6, 2022 — the day they got their health data back.Underfederal rules taking effect Thursday, health care organizations must give patients unfettered access to their full health records in digital format. No more long delays. No more fax machines. No more exorbitant charges for printed pages.Just the data, please — now.“My great hope is that this will turn the tide on the culture of information blocking,” said Lisa Bari, CEO of Civitas Networks for Health, a nonprofit that supports medical data sharing. “It’s a ground level thing to me: We need to make sure information flows the way patients want it to.”That ’s the opposite of the situation now in place. Health systems, data networks, and the companies that sell electronic medical records determine how much data patients can access, when, and under what circumstances. Meanwhile, private data brokers make huge profits by amassing hundreds of millions o f de-identified medical records and selling insights to drug companies, device makers, and insurers without patients’ knowledge or consent.The new federal rules — passed under the 21st Century Cures Act — are designed to shift the balance of p...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - Category: Information Technology Authors: Source Type: blogs