Too
HIPAA

March 24, 2014 -- Why should I care whether anyone knows my immunizations or can see the x-ray image of my broken foot? I don't care -- help yourself. The truth is that for me and most people, most health care data needn't be kept private. There's nothing secret or even interesting about it... Except to researchers and to my care givers. These people should have unfettered access.

Well-intentioned HIPAA safeguards create obstacles that are not justified. In practice, HIPAA reinforces data silos -- provider institutions that keep my data to themselves -- that inhibit sharing. Also, HIPAA grows the mountains of paperwork that they and I must scale whenever care is given.

Certain types of data -- psychological health and substance abuse history, for example, listed in detail here -- should indeed be protected, with access controlled solely by the patient, but this is a small fraction of health data.

The benefits of sharing data are numerous. These include the ability to conduct population-wide and epidemiological research. Famously promoting such access to and uses of this data is Google co-founder Larry Page who in this TechCrunch piece proposes that we make all health data public. Go Larry!

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