New law proposed for US e-health

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has proposed changes to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy rule that would provide individuals with more details about who accessed their electronic health information and disclosures of the e-health data, reports Information Week.

The changes to the HIPAA privacy rule are being proposed by HHS' Office for civil rights in accordance with accounting disclosure requirements mandated by the HITECH Act.

According to Bloomberg, General Electric, Siemens and other providers of electronic health-record technology may benefit from the proposed change medical privacy regulations.

The proposal may spur investments in e-health record systems and related technology provided by GE and Siemens to make the systems able to generate reports on who has accessed a record, Craig Le Clair, an analyst with Forrester Research, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based technology research firm, said in an interview.

“It's another requirement that drives investment in the newer systems and technology,” Le Clair said. Hospitals and physicians will be under “more pressure to buy” electronic record systems, he added.

However, The New York Times states that such lapses, frightening to consumers, could impede the Obama administration's effort to shift the nation to e-health care records.

“People need to be assured that their health records are secure and private,” Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services, stated in an interview.

“I feel equally strongly that conversion to e-health records may be one of the most transformative issues in the delivery of health care, lowering medical errors, reducing costs and helping to improve the quality of outcomes, Sebelius noted.”