Privacy Advocate Tackles Issue of Patient Consent Rights

As health data privacy concerns heat up to a boiling point on multiple fronts, it’s more essential than ever that patients get a clear opportunity to make a choice about whether their data is shared, says privacy advocate Twila Brase, who heads the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom.

“This is a scary time for patients,” she says in an interview with Information Security Media Group.

In recent months, several large healthcare organizations, including Ascension Health and Mayo Clinic, have disclosed research partnerships with Google that involve access to patient records.

Meanwhile, federal regulators - to carry out a 21st Century Cures Act goal to drive medical innovation and improve patient care - are proposing standards that promote the use of application programming interfaces and consumer health apps to give patients access to their own health data from electronic health records (see: Long Awaited HHS Data Sharing Rules Raise Privacy Worries).