Physician Privacy: IS Big Brother Watching?

I blog a lot about social media and physicians utilizing online tools. Ultimately these topics raise a number of concerns about privacy and appropriateness, and rightfully so. Margalit Gur-Arie guest-blogged on KevinMD recently on the topic of privacy in the EHR era. Although some might paint her opinion as somewhat alarmist, she raises a number of excellent points about how health information is being captured -- and shared.

"As we move to electronic health records (EHR), the debates over security and privacy are becoming more frequent and more poignant.

We of course have HIPAA laws on the books and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has a Tiger team assembled to recommend privacy and security policies to Secretary Sebelius.

CIOs and entire IT departments are all focused on protecting the privacy of patients and their Personal Health Information (PHI). This is, of course, as it should be, but how about privacy of those taking care of patients? Do physicians have a right to privacy too?"

She brings up some interesting points about how physican data might be parsed and aggregated to track trends in prescribing habits, procedures ordered, time spent with patients, and so on. In the era of EHRs, coupled with the push for tracking performance data for Pay for Performance, QI, and other metrics, many of her concerns are echoed by other physicians. And her concerns about "Consumer Reports" style web sites are valid -- such sites already exist, such as HealthGrades.com and RateMDs.com. Google Health, which I wrote about a few months ago, links to reviews of physicians. Even Angie's List now has a section for rating doctors.

Sermo, one of the more popular online physician communities, makes its money not through advertising, but by providing access to a number of its information products, including access to discussions by Sermo members around drugs and therapies. Although Sermo is transparent about this and openly touts the products on its web site, some members may not realize that their conversations are providing data to interested parties.

So what do you docs in the trenches think? Does Margalit raise some valid concerns? Do you agree or disagree? 

About the Author

Stephen Welch

Senior Vice President, Communications
Executive Editor, CHEST

This blog, "It Ain't Rocket Surgery" is intended to help busy health-care professionals find useful online and mobile resources that will enhance their self-education and professional research efforts, or point out important topics of discussion related to online information and content. The blog's title is a Yogi Berra style mash-up of two common phrases, "it ain't brain surgery" and "it ain't rocket science". I hope it will be casual, fun, insightful, and -- most of all -- educational.

You can follow me on Twitter. 

I currently serve ACCP as the Senior Vice President of Communications, as well as the Executive Editor of CHEST, the ACCP’s flagship journal. During my 15 years here, ACCP has focused on growing and developing the editorial, technological, and business aspects of the College. We are constantly striving to make the journal and other ACCP educational content as accessible and useful to clinicians as possible.

When not at work, I like to spend time scuba diving with sharks, collecting original comic book artwork, exploring the digital world, and searching for good BBQ.

Your feedback about the blog is always appreciated. So are tips on good BBQ joints.