Sharing electronic health records: Confidentiality is big issue

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7453.1437-b

BMJ 2004;328:1437-1438 (12 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7453.1437-b

Letter

Sharing electronic health records

Confidentiality is big issue

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The central Hampshire electronic health recordproject raises important issues, with implications for the nationalspine network.^1
2 The authors assert, after 20 web based responsesfrom a population of 225 000, that most people support linkedrecords. No informed consent was obtained to records being availableacross health and social care, driving a coach and horses throughthe General Medical Council's guidance on confidentiality andconsent.³ This makes no exception for computerised disseminationundermining confidentiality between professional and client.

The authors' second paper, on data quality, considers codingand data unavailability, but not accuracy. Speculative diagnosessuch as Munchausen syndrome by proxy, for example, may be withheldfrom patients because of potential harm. Thus informed consentto dissemination is unobtainable, and "garbage in, garbage out"inevitable.

Booth wrote that if safeguards to confidentiality and accuracyof patient information prove insufficient, then the caring professionswill not use the . . . [Full text of this article]

Derek F H Pheby, director

Unit of Applied Epidemiology, University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus, Bristol BS16 1QY Derek.Pheby@uwe.ac.uk

CiteULike

Complore

Connotea

Del.icio.us Add to Digg

Digg

Technorati What's this?

Relevant Articles

Lessons from the central Hampshire electronic health record pilot project: issues of data protection and consent: Trina Adams, Martin Budden, Chris Hoare, and Hugh Sanderson
BMJ 2004 328: 871-874. [Full Text] [PDF]