The other day, in classs, we discussed the idea of sharing our medical information between doctors and hospitals. Some would suggest that we create a national registry for this information. Although, this may on paper, sound like a wonderful way to enter to save money on health insurance, we have to remember who we are talking about. Our government and health industry have a lot to learn about protecting and securing our personal and medical information.
On thing nice about the internet, is that all you have to do is put in key words about an issue, or problem, and a wealth of information appears. I was listening to TV news the other night, when Providence Hospital announced that they had a breach of a harddrive. If you put in "Government lost harddrives", you will not have enough time in your lifetime to research all their screw-ups. I would love to think that more doctors having my medical information could help save my life one day, but at what potential cost to my private information.
We could debate the fact that it would be a great idea. But, these people are the biggest bunglers of personal information, ever. I do not believe that we should trust these people with any amount of non-essential information. They, along with others, should be given information on a "need-to-know" basis.
