But the Department of Health and Human Services is deferring any discussion of a patient identifier until after Congress passes legislation to protect the privacy of health-care information. This was supposed to be done by August, but was not. So now it s up to Health and Human Services to make its own rules, which is supposed to happen by February. Nobody knows whether Congress will accept the regulations that HHS puts forth. Various groups, including AIDS rights organizations, state insurance commissioners and consumer advocates, are hoping to influence the process.
Insurance companies are by far the loudest voice in the process, however.
But they aren t depending on the government. I think the public s confidence that our health-care system does this well has been shaken. Blair says America and the world must press on and computerize medical records because the benefits of doing so are so great. They are just now starting to be used by the health-care system in the finance and administration areas. But it won t be until we apply them to the clinical part that we get the real big improvements in quality and cost.