H.R.2957 and its proposal to limit eDiscovery of potentially admissible and material evidence in EHR-related medical disasters

Do computers have more rights than patients?It often appears that way to me. Health IT and its industry sector seem to garner extraordinary regulatory accommodations compared to other healthcare and life-critical sectors - such as freedom from meaningful safety regulation, freedom from need for human research subjects protections and informed consent on EHR risks ... and in this proposal, freedom from full legal Discovery:US Congress has a bill, H.R.2957 - Behavioral Health Information Technology Act of 2013, 113th Congress (2013-2014), at http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th/house-bill/2957) with a section (SEC. 4. PROVIDING PROTECTIONS FOR CERTAIN PROVIDERS, VENDORS, AND USERS OF CERTIFIED EHR TECHNOLOGY) that provides safe harbors for reporting EHR-related errors.The text of Sec. 4 contains this:... (c) Rules Relating to E-Discovery.--In any health care lawsuit against a covered entity that is related to an EHR-related adverse event, with respect to certified EHR technology used or provided by the covered entity, electronic discovery shall be limited to--        (1) information that is related to such EHR-related adverse event; and        (2) information from the period in which such EHR-related adverse event occurred. In other words, it seems the bill proposes, on capricious grounds, that an injured party cannot discover any information from prior to - or after - the EHR-related event they allege caused the...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: eDiscovery H.R.2957 healthcare IT special accommodation PROTECTIONS FOR USERS OF CERTIFIED EHR TECHNOLOGY Rules Enabling Act Source Type: blogs