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NHS trusts are sharing intimate details about patients’ medical conditions, appointments and treatments with Facebook without consent and despite promising never to do so. An Observer investigation has uncovered a covert tracking tool in the websites of 20 NHS trusts which has for years collected browsing information and shared it with the tech giant in a major breach of privacy. The data includes granular details of pages viewed, buttons clicked and keywords searched. It is matched to the user’s IP address – an identifier linked to an individual or household – and in many cases details of their Facebook account....

A federal judge officially declared a mistrial in a federal case involving two doctors who were accused of conspiring to help Russia in its war with Ukraine by providing private medical records. Prosecutors accused Anna Gabrielian, a Johns Hopkins anesthesiologist, and Jamie Lee Henry, her active-duty Army officer husband, of attempting to become Russian assets after they allegedly shared private and "exploitable" health records of their patients to an undercover FBI agent, according to WBALTV 11. The couple was arrested in 2022 after allegedly meeting with someone they thought was from the Russian embassy, but who was actually an FBI...

A U.S. Army major doctor and his physician wife have been charged with a criminal plot to give confidential medical information related to members of the U.S. military and their spouses to the Russian government. The couple, Major Jamie Lee Henry and anaesthesiologist Anna Gabrielian, were named in a federal indictment unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Maryland, charging them with conspiracy to disclose health information.

Chinese health authorities recently announced that COVID-19 vaccination records and nucleic acid testing results will be automatically integrated into the citizens’ digital health codes. But the plan has sparked public concerns. The Chinese-language Epoch Times spoke with some citizens who said that the regime might make vaccination compulsory. They are reluctant to get inoculated with Chinese-made vaccines due to quality concerns and lack of transparency. They also believe that if vaccination information is included in their health codes, the data could be used to discriminate against them and their movements will be more restricted. On March 23, the National Health...

The federal government funneled billions in subsidies to software vendors who overstated or deceived the government about what their products could do, according to whistleblowers.(LYDIA ZURAW/KHN) This story also ran on Fortune. This story can be republished for free (details). Derek Lewis was working as an electronic health records specialist for the nation’s largest hospital chain when he heard about software defects that might even “kill a patient.” The doctors at Midwest (City) Regional Medical Center in Oklahoma worried that the software failed to track some drug prescriptions or dosages properly, posing a “huge safety concern,” Lewis said. Lewis cited...

The Obama administration is moving ahead with controversial new rules that require doctors to switch to electronic health records or face fees, resisting calls from both parties to delay implementation. Federal health officials said the final rules released Tuesday will make “significant changes" in the "meaningful use" electronic health records program, such as lowering the number of standards each provider must meet and allowing providers to apply for hardship exemptions. But the administration will not delay what it calls "Stage 3" of the records program, a move that is already angering vocal Republicans like Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who have...

More and more people are having the disturbing experience of seeing their doctors spend more time pecking at a computer keyboard than examining them. The doctors are entering data into their patients’ electronic health records (EHRs) in compliance with federal rules introduced a few years ago. EHRs drive doctors crazy. Their own experience tells them that electronic recordkeeping interferes with care, by taking time away from patients. In a survey conducted by the Deloitte consulting group, three of four doctors said EHRs are not worth the cost. The influential RAND Corporation, which had long endorsed EHRs, reported in 2013 that...

According to two new studies published Wednesday by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), U.S. physicians and hospitals are rapidly increasing the use of electronic health records (EHRs). The two studies found that in 2013: •Nearly 78 percent of office-based physicians acknowledged they had implemented some form of EHR system. •About half of all physicians had an EHR system with advanced functionalities, nearly double the rate of four years before. •About 59 percent of hospitals had an EHR system with advanced functionalities, nearly quadruple the rate of two years before. The HHS claims that...

A new rule issued late Friday requires state, federal and local agencies as well as health insurers to swap the protected personal health information of anybody seeking to join the new health care program that will be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service. Personal health information, or PHI, is highly protected under federal law, but the latest ruling from the Department of Health and Human Services allows agencies to trade the information to verify that Obamacare applicants are getting the minimum amount of health insurance coverage they need from the health "exchanges." The ruling, explained on pages 72-73 of the...

THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG THE BLOG TUESDAY, AUGUST 4TH, 2009 AT 6:55 AM Facts Are Stubborn Things Posted by Macon Phillips Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things." Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions. In this video, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to...

The Obama administration adamantly denies it, but rumors are circulating in Washington that his Department of Health and Human Services is already collecting Americans’ private health information, or at least preparing itself to do so. Rep. Denny Rehberg, the chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services and Education formalized the rumors by asking about them in a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Thursday. “Specifically, I have been told that HHS has already procured a contractor to build a database and that this contractor has already taken steps to acquire personal health care data...

In a proposed rule from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal government is demanding insurance companies submit detailed health care information about their patients. See Proposed Rule: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Standards Related to Reinsurance, Risk Corridors and Risk Adjustment, Volume 76, page 41930. Proposed rule docket ID is HHS-OS-2011-0022 http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-07-15/pdf/2011-17609.pdf

Consumers have been slow to adopt personal health records (PHR), a Web-based tool designed to encourage consumers to engage in their healthcare by tracking and aggregating their health information online, according to a study from IDC Health Insights. The findings come at a time when other technologies such as electronic health records, mobile health devices, e-prescriptions, and other technologies are seeing accelerated rates of adoption as healthcare delivery organizations implement systems to manage patient data. The report – "Vendor Assessment: When Will PHR Platforms Gain Consumer Acceptance?" -- was based on an online survey of 1,200 consumers between February 18...

A laptop computer with health and personal information on 21,000 patients was stolen from an office at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia in June. The patients whose unencrypted records were on the password-protected laptop were notified last Friday of the theft in a letter from hospital president Thomas J. Lewis, who offered identity-theft monitoring and protection. [...] The breach at Jefferson is part of a national problem, experts say. A federal database has documented 121 such lapses nationwide since September 2009, showing that medical or financial information had been exposed for more than five million people. [...] Perhaps as...

New federal regulations issued this week stipulate that the electronic health records--that all Americans are supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year--must record not only the traditional measures of height and weight, but also the Body Mass Index: a measure of obesity. The obesity-rating regulation states that every American's electronic health record must: “Calculate body mass index. Automatically calculate and display body mass index (BMI) based on a patient’s height and weight.” The law also requires that these electronic health records be available--with appropriate security measures--on a national...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53857 Obama Announces Joint Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record By Donna Miles American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, April 9, 2009 – President Barack Obama announced plans today to create a joint virtual lifetime electronic record that will improve care and services to transitioning veterans by smoothing the flow of medical records between the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments. The concept, long advocated by officials in both departments, is considered a major step toward improving the delivery of care and services to servicemembers transitioning from military to civilian life. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and...

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D.-R.I.) says people will be able to stop doctors from including records of sexually transmitted diseases and abortions in the new national system of Electronic Health Records that was mandated by the stimulus law enacted in February. The law says that doctors, hospitals and other health care providers must create an Electronic Health Record (EHR) for every American by 2014 or else face deductions in their Medicare payments. The EHRs are supposed to be integrated into a national health care IT system where health-care providers nationwide as well as the government would have the ability to access...

People Can Opt Out of Listing STDs, Abortions in Gov't-Mandated Electronic Health Records, Patrick Kennedy Says Monday, September 28, 2009 By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter   (CNSNews.com) - Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D.-R.I.) says people will be able to stop doctors from including records of sexually transmitted diseases and abortions in the new national system of Electronic Health Records that was mandated by the stimulus law enacted in February.   The law says that doctors, hospitals and other health care providers must create and Electronic Health Record (EHR) for every American by 2014 or else face deductions in their Medicare payments. The EHRs are supposed...

The Obama administration unveiled $1.2 billion in federal grants for electronic health records systems on Thursday, the first wave of funding under a health-care reform plan to create vast records-sharing networks aimed at cutting costs and improving care in the coming decade. The administration has described such computer systems as a crucial step in overhauling the nation's expensive health-care system. It allocated more than $36 billion in the landmark stimulus legislation to spur adoption of the equipment by doctors and hospitals along with the development of the networks that will link them all together... ...about half the grant money would...

Wal-Mart Stores is striding into the market for electronic health records, seeking to bring the technology into the mainstream for physicians in small offices, where most of America’s doctors practice medicine. Wal-Mart’s move comes as the Obama administration is trying to jump-start the adoption of digital medical records with $19 billion of incentives in the economic stimulus package. The company plans to team its Sam’s Club division with Dell for computers and eClinicalWorks, a fast-growing private company, for software. Wal-Mart says its package deal of hardware, software, installation, maintenance and training will make the technology more accessible and affordable, undercutting...