AHIC privacy co-chairman resigns in protest
- By Heather B. Hayes
- Feb 23, 2007
Paul Feldman resigned on Feb. 21 as co-chairman of the American Health Information Community's Confidentiality, Privacy and Security (CPS) Workgroup, citing in a letter to Interim National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Robert Kolodner the panel's lack of "substantial progress toward the development of comprehensive privacy and security policies that must be at the core of a nationwide health information network."
The CPS Workgroup, formed in early 2006, is tasked with providing recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services on how best to ensure the privacy and security of electronic medical records.
Feldman, also the deputy director of the Health Privacy Project (HPP), began serving as co-chairman, along with co-chair Kirk Nahra, of the CPS Workgroup in July 2006. The workgroup met six times under his leadership but produced only a single set of recommendations on patient identity-proofing.
Feldman stated in his resignation letter that "these recommendations and expected CPS next steps are a far cry from a comprehensive and timely approach that would give privacy policy equal and necessary footing with interoperability and systems development efforts."
HHS officials did not return calls or e-mails from Government Health IT requesting a comment on Feldman's resignation. The resignation letter was also signed by Janlori Goldman, director of the HPP, and copied to HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt and 15 members of Congress.
Privacy advocates applauded the move. "It's a vote of no-confidence for the process at HHS, and Mr. Feldman and Ms. Goldman clearly think that HHS does not have the will to build in adequate privacy protections for patients," said Deborah Peel, chair of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation. "We hope this move will finally get people's attention about what's going on with this issue."
Feldman's resignation came on the heels of a GAO report criticizing HHS privacy efforts, which concluded that "without a clearly defined approach that establishes milestones for integrating its efforts and fully addresses key privacy principles and these challenges, it is likely that HHS's goal to safeguard personal health information as part of its national strategy for health IT will not be met."
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