In a conversation with California Healthline, Deven McGraw -- director of the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology -- discussed barriers that are hindering efforts to protect health data privacy.
According to McGraw, many health care providers face challenges in protecting the personal health data of adolescents, who might seek certain health care services without their parents' knowledge. She added that some health care providers might cause data breaches inadvertently during the process of documenting a patient's care.
In addition, McGraw noted that the increased use of electronic health record systems has raised questions about whether existing health data privacy regulations should be tightened.
McGraw also outlined several steps that consumers can take to help protect the privacy of their health information (California Healthline, 2/1).
The complete transcript of this report is available as a PDF.
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