Will Patient Privacy Be Sold for Stimulus Money?

/PRNewswire/ -- The key to enforcing healthcare reform was already passed in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the Stimulus Bill. This contains $17 billion to encourage physicians and hospitals to adopt electronic health records.

Doctors might not take the bribe. An informal online survey by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) so far shows that 90 percent of more than 1,100 respondents answer "No" to the question "Should doctors take the 'Stimulus' money to computerize their offices?" See www.aapsonline.org.

To get the subsidy of up to $65,000 over 5 years, doctors have to use a government-approved system. Such a system must be "interoperable" -- which means able to share patients' private information with more than 600,000 different entities.

No patient consent is needed.

Doctors are warned: "If you take the stimulus money to computerize your office, the government will own your patients' medical records -- and possibly your practice," states Jane M. Orient, M.D., executive director of AAPS.

The system will have to be capable of generating lists of patients by specific conditions, to use for "quality improvement," reduction of disparities, research, and outreach. It will have to contain decision rules as for ordering diagnostic tests, and a way to track compliance with the rules. Doctors' pay will be tied to achieving the government's desired outcomes.

The government's purposes include cutting spending and meeting population health goals. The doctor's calling, in contrast, has traditionally been to serve each individual patient.

Changing from a sickness to a wellness orientation means that healthy young workers (taxpayers and voters) have a priority higher than older, sicker folks.

Under the Senate healthcare reform bill, a computer will determine, at the point of service, whether or not an individual is eligible to receive a specific service at a specific facility. The interoperable health record would contain information such as ethnicity, race, preferred language, smoking status, weight, body mass index, age, and compliance with past treatment, related to patient worthiness and societal goals.

"Interoperability" is what the $17 billion buys for the government. It's essential for central government monitoring and control of doctors -- and their patients.

-----
www.politicalpotluck.com
Political News You Can Use

WashingtonWatch.com Collects 20,000+ Earmarks, Drives Reform: OMB to Track Earmarks Next Year

/PRNewswire/ --WashingtonWatch.com users have brought permanent change to earmarking practices in Washington, D.C.

Federal Computer Week reports that beginning next year the White House's Office of Management and Budget will begin collecting and reporting earmark requests, as the WashingtonWatch.com site has been doing this summer.

http://tinyurl.com/OMBearmarks

"With our example, we've shown that earmark requests should be on the public record and in useful formats," said Jim Harper, Webmaster of WashingtonWatch.com. "The public wants to see what their members of Congress and senators are doing."

The Office of Management and Budget deserves praise for recognizing and responding to public interest in this issue. Americans want access to earmark data -- including earmark requests -- at a high level of detail.

The real credit, though, goes to the WashingtonWatch.com earmark hunters around the country who continue to enter earmarks into the database.

Through an earmark hunting contest, WashingtonWatch.com is working to collect and map the earmark requests of every member of Congress and senator. The current focus is on House and Senate appropriators.

http://bit.ly/1eCeIx

The project was partially funded by the Sunlight Foundation, and the contest continues until all earmarks are collected or the beginning of the fiscal year, whichever comes first.

WashingtonWatch.com uses government predictions about the costs or savings from proposed laws to calculate the significance to average Americans -- in dollars and cents -- of proposed changes to the nation's policies. More information about these calculations is available on the "about" page of the Web site.

-----
www.politicalpotluck.com
Political News You Can Use