Poll Finds Strong Support For Greater Medical Privacy
November 10, 2010
| 3:46 PM
A new poll released Wednesday found most of those surveyed say doctors, health technology systems, health insurance companies, hospitals and labs should not be allowed to share or sell patients' health information without their consent.
The online interactive survey of 2,000 adults was conducted by Zogby International for the health privacy watchdog group Patients Privacy Rights.
The poll found 97 percent of those surveyed said doctors, health technology systems, hospitals and labs should not be allowed to sell or share their personal health information without consent, while 98 percent want the same standard applied to insurance companies.
During a conference call with reporters, physician Deborah Peel, the group's founder and chairwoman, said insurance companies are increasingly selling aggregated data about their customers. While the companies say they do not reveal the identities of their customers, Peel argued that "it's too easy to re-identify" those customers.
Other findings from the poll found 91 percent support giving patients control over who can access their electronic health records; 87 percent say patients should decide who can see or use their health information; and 78 percent said they would be more likely to use a website that gave users a say in who can see or use the health information they provide to the site.
Peel noted that websites that provide medical information often gather and sell information provided by their users. She called on Congress to pass legislation that would require consent from patients before using their medical information. A handful of measures were introduced in Congress this year that would require patient consent before medical information or other highly sensitive information such as financial data could be shared or used by others. "The bottom line is that we have to solve this problem at some point with a law" from Congress, Peel said.
The survey, conducted Aug. 24-26, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.
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