Privacy Standards for Online Health Records

The Wall Street Journal Health Blog has a helpful overview of the new privacy framework agreed to by some internet folks for protecting privacy of online health records.

Google, Microsoft and a bunch of other organizations said yesterday they have agreed to a set of privacy standards for online health records. You can read all about the framework here.

It’s pretty clear that there’s a lot of upside from having peoples’ health records online — less redundancy, fewer missing tests, no more faxing records from one doctor to another. But privacy is a big concern; a recent article in the NEJM pointed out that tech shops such as Google and Microsoft don’t have to abide by HIPAA, the federal law that covers patient privacy. . . .