Experts and advocacy groups have urged Congress to add more stringent patient privacy safeguards to proposed electronic medical records legislation, the Los Angeles Times reports. A bill now in the House would establish a national structure for computerized health records, including stipulations for applying current privacy laws to information that is stored or transmitted electronically as well as reconciliation of differences in state and federal privacy laws.
But advocates—labor unions, consumer groups, and AARP—say the legislation currently does not allow patients to decide who can see their health records or to exclude their records from the system. The legislation also should include a provision that would require patients to be notified if a security breach occurs, advocacy groups say. A House-Senate conference to reach consensus is likely to be contentious, says the Times.
