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It seems that there is some discussion about creating a federal health database, as part of the Affordable Care Act passed earlier this year, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM)This database is:
- Designed to help the agency more cost-effectively manage three health claims programs: the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP), the National Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Program and the Multi-State Option Plan. (para #6)
There seems to be a growing trend of prescription drug abuse and some states, e.g., North Carolina keep a prescription drug database that tracks voluntary tracks prescription for the purpose of trying to understand this dilemma. However, local law enforcement want access to this database to combat this legal abuse of prescription drugs.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), also states that: In addition to using the data for its own internal analysis, the OPM will also make it available, if required, for law enforcement purposes and for use in judicial or administrative proceedings, and to “researchers and analysts” inside and outside government for healthcare research purposes, the OPM notice said (para 11).
My questions:
- Who are these researchers and analysts?
- With so many non-medical individuals requesting to access these health databases starting to come online – can we really keep our health information private,
- Wasn’t HIPAA supposed to help protect our medical information?
What do you think?
Comments
I think that this is a step toward Open Government. I am not sure how detailed the information they are collecting is going to be, but if the information is public on topics such as “Prescription Drug Abuse” in states, then having general information on that topic available allows for third parties to mine the data to draw conclusions.