Privacy (and Lack of Privacy) in Medical Records

Who: Deborah Peel, M.D.
President
Patient Privacy Rights

What: Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility Speaker Series

When: Friday, February 15, 2008        1 - 3 p.m.                   FREE PIZZA

Where: Legacy Room, CBA 3.202 

Why Come:  Dr. Peel will discuss privacy (and lack of privacy), especially of medical records. You may be shocked to learn who is buying and selling medical information.

Bio: Deborah C. Peel MD is a practicing physician and national expert on health privacy. She became active in privacy rights at the federal level in 1993 when the Clinton Healthcare Initiative required every doctor-patient encounter to be entered in a federal health database. She advocated first as an individual and later on behalf of state and national medical specialty organizations for patient control of access to medical records. She presents at national panels and Congressional briefings, has provided state and federal testimony, and is widely quoted in trade journals and the national press.

In 2002, she was a plaintiff in Citizens for Health v. Leavitt. Plaintiffs sought to restore the right of consent which was eliminated by the amendments to the HIPAA Privacy Rule. Ultimately the case lost at the appellate level and was not accepted by the Supreme Court in 2006. The case showed the need for a national consumer organization dedicated to restoring patient privacy.

In 2004, Dr. Peel founded Patient Privacy Rights (www.patientprivacyrights.org) to educate and empower Americans to ensure Americans control all access to their health records. Patient Privacy Rights is the nation’s leading health privacy watchdog organization. Patient Privacy Rights educates the public, healthcare and IT industries, the media, and Congress about the massive threats technology poses to Americans’ privacy rights. Patient Privacy Rights represents the only real ‘stakeholders’ in the healthcare system: consumers. For electronic health systems to be trusted and succeed, the rights and interests of patients and consumers must come first.

In 2006, Dr. Peel formed the Coalition for Patient Privacy. The bipartisan coalition of 40+ organizations urged Congress to add basic privacy protections to health IT legislation. Coalition members ranged from the far left to the far right, from the Family Research Council and the Christian Coalition, to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the ACLU, and the California Medical Association. Patient Privacy Rights and the Coalition continue to educate Congress about the need to save health privacy.

In August, 2007, Dr. Peel was named #4 of the “100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare” by Modern Healthcare Magazine.

Who’s invited: Open to the public.

Contact: Dr. Julie Irwin, Director of Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, Associate Professor of Marketing