You should. The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee passed a bill that will create a giant database of everyone's health records. Can you imagine the consequences of someone hacking into this system? It would make the VA fiasco caused by a stolen laptop look puny in comparison. Then there is questions about what the government might do with the information, beyond research. ClinkShrink has an interesting comment:

ClinkShrink said...

Will people be able to opt out of this national health information system? And what happens when law enforcement decides to subpoena aggregate data to investigate patterns of national drug abuse? Or infectious diseases? Or physician's prescribing of controlled substances? The last thing I would worry about is some outside person hacking into the system or losing my personal information. I'd be much more worried about how the government will use the information it legitimately has access to.

Here is an excerpt from Shrink Rap's post:

The bill [HR 4157, "to encourage the dissemination, security, confidentiality, and usefulness of health information."] approved by the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee explicitly protects the current HIPAA “non-preemption” language that ensures that stronger state privacy laws will remain in force. While this is an important acknowledgment, additional work is needed to protect patient medical records, as evidenced by recent revelations of data and record loss in the VA system and DOD, among others. During Subcommittee debate, Democrats proposed an amendment that sought to strengthen the enforcement of existing privacy protections and require a privacy breach notification. The amendment failed by a vote of 10 to 12.

The Bush Administration proposed a computer-based method for storing and easily making available healthcare records. While this technology can be critically important, even life saving for some medical concerns, it presents a unique risk to mental health service consumers.

Societal stigma is alive and well. Employers, insurance companies, and even law enforcement maybe placed in a position to discriminate based on available records. Special protections must be in place to prevent untrained people from accessing your records.

PRIVACY CONCERNS ON MENTAL HEALTH RECORDS

“We believe that a National Health Information Network (NHIN) has the potential to improve the quality of health care provided in this country, allowing instant access to critical health information at any point of care,” said Newman. “At the same time, however, we are extremely concerned about issues of privacy and confidentiality, particularly with mental health records, raised by this proposed increase in accessibility of health information.” According to Newman, in order to develop the NHIN in a manner which will promote quality healthcare, it is critical to consider the unique privacy issues relating to mental health records. “Most people understand that mental health records are particularly sensitive because they may contain a patient’s innermost personal information. Many also are aware that, unfortunately, the stigma attached to mental illness and mental health treatment makes the records of that treatment especially sensitive. Any breach of privacy could be devastating to the patient. Unlike most other areas of health care, the mere possibility that confidential information might be disclosed prevents successful treatment from occurring by interfering with the development of the necessary trusting psychotherapy relationship and open communication with the therapist.”

Additionally, Newman raised concerns about access to mental health records by others in the healthcare system not trained or experienced with mental health issues, health insurers and law enforcement officials. Newman also discussed what choice patients would have in deciding whether to have their records included in NHIN. “If patients consent to electronic records, it would be necessary to inform them of all potential uses of their records and by whom. While most patients may want their records available to health care professionals who are treating them, they might feel quite different about giving such access to insurance companies.”