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Caremark, Prescriptions and Personal Information

A friend of mine, Ms. S., recently had an unsettling experience with a company called Caremark (the parent company of pharmacy CVS), whom she fills her prescriptions through. She was reordering a prescription refill she buys through the mail, and needed to pay for it....

A New Conversation About Health Privacy: Who’s In?

Facebook has sparked a new debate about privacy and I think it’s time to bring it to health care. What does it mean when millions of people flock to share/overshare information, even as Facebook’s default privacy settings have slowly become openness...

The Decision Tree: How Better Health Can Scale

“The internet was created to connect people and groups. The first step is to share stories. The next step is to share quantitative observations.” “Health care has been locked up in regulatory amber. HIPAA was passed in 1996, almost perfectly timed to...

Second wave of comments on Health IT safety issues

Last month I posted the testimony I submitted to the Adoption/Certification Workgroup of the Health IT Policy Committee. (I urge interested parties to review the links to other resources in that post.) Today Paul Egerman, chair of that team, circulated a preliminary...

Health IT Policy: E-patients want access

What would you say to policymakers who are discussing the implementation of a national health information infrastructure? Here’s what I’d say: E-patients want access to tools and information.  Many will find what they need, many will not. You can help....

Dx: Revolting.   Rx: Revolt.

Tuesday night, endorsement #906 on HealthDataRights.org came from a Judy Beckman, who says: “I agree all the way I cannot get MY records unless I pay for MY records $1.00 per page WHY WHY these are MINE???????????” Indeed, why? Whose data is it, anyway? This spring...

EMRs: “Would you take it if it were FREE?”

Blogger John at the “EMR (EHR) and HIPAA” blog posted a musing that caused my business antennas to twitch. A vigorous discussion has started in the comments. Here’s the thing: we’re talking about the billions of incentives we’re offering...

The Parable of the Wicked EMR
(guest post by David Kibbe)

Preface by e-Patient Dave: This is a story of bad data gone wild, wrong info that spreads. It starts with a story from the 1600s, which applies all too aptly to our EMR situation today, in which there are inadequate controls on data quality, and errors that leak can...

CCHIT, PHR and the Lack of e-Patient Representation

When Google Health was launched, a few weeks ago, all the onus was put on the privacy issue. So much so that we may have lost focus on other issues that are of real importance to the future of e-Patients (that means you and me and everybody else you know!). For...

Why Doesn’t My Doctor Answer My Email?

Because he or she is afraid — afraid of being overwhelmed by one more responsibility, of not being reimbursed for time spent answering emails, of patient privacy, of HIPAA, and of course, of legal liability if they set an expectation of replying to emails in a...

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