Are ‘privacy concerns’ just a smoke screen for opposition to the proposed interoperability rule to improve data sharing? It came to light that Epic CEO Judy Faulkner had sent an email to hospital customers asking them to voice opposition to the rule. But it turns out that major hospital systems, opposed to the rule, have no problem sharing data with the likes of Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Regulators and lawmakers are carefully scrutinizing health system Ascension over their data deals. They may look at others.
Its pretty obvious that putting the full medical records of each patient in front of their doctor can only improve quality of healthcare and potentially reduce its cost. NextGen Healthcare President and CEO Rusty Frantz, whose son has a “complex health history”, observed: “It’s concerning to think that this patient identified data could potentially be shared with parties not involved in this care but not with the very doctors that are treating him”.
Regarding NextGen, he said: “We’re bringing our clients into the world of interoperability and bringing them free of charge because we believe it’s the right thing to do for both care and quality.”
Quotes excerpted from an article in FierceHealthcare.
