In a report issued this month, the Government Accountability Office says that the Department of Health and Human Services is in the “early stages of its efforts” to protect personal health information in electronic health records. The report says HHS has “not yet defined an overall approach for integrating its various privacy-related initiatives and addressing key privacy principles” despite the work of several IT contracts and advisory committees that were mandated to develop strategies for ensuring privacy. HHS did not concur with the GAO’s findings, saying it was “very committed to privacy and security,” reports The New York Times. But Jim Nicholson, the secretary of Veterans Affairs, and Mark A. Rothstein, the chairman of a panel that advises the government on health information policy, both supported the GAO’s recommendations that HHS needs to develop a comprehensive approach to guarantee patient privacy during the exchange of electronic data. “Health privacy has not received adequate attention at the Department of Health and Human Services,” Rothstein told the Times. “A sense of urgency is lacking,” which could stall further progress on electronic health records, he said.
