Jon Tabar » Health http://www.jontabar.com Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:23:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Google Health – HIPAA exempt http://www.jontabar.com/2009/01/12/google-health-hipaa-exempt/ http://www.jontabar.com/2009/01/12/google-health-hipaa-exempt/#comments Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:46:25 +0000 jon http://www.jontabar.com/?p=30 As a patient of the Cleveland Clinic, I have the option of linking my Cleveland Clinic health records with Google’s (relatively) new Google Health service.  Sounds pretty interesting to me.  Unfortunately, I won’t be trying it out anytime in the near future.  You see, since Google is not a health care provider, they are exempt from HIPAA guidelines, which exist to protect your private medical history.  Below is a quote from the Cleveland Clinic Supplemental Authorization for Release of Medical Information to Google:
“Please understand that once your medical information is released to Google through this authorization, re-disclosure or re-use of your medical information by Google is no longer protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (‘HIPAA’).”

Sure, Google will be happy to tell you about how secure their systems are.  I’m sure they’d be happy to point out that they will not share this confidential info with others under most circumstances.  However, if any organization were to subpoena Google for your records (insurance company, employer, etc.), Google may be required to hand it over.  Your usual HIPAA-provided legal protection would be non-existant at Google.

Share/Bookmark]]> http://www.jontabar.com/2009/01/12/google-health-hipaa-exempt/feed/ 0