Back to the article. Patients have requested to opt out of the national network and repository, and the Government has rejected their requests!
Polls show that 53% of patients are opposed to having their data on the system, and as a result, 52% of general practitioners are opposed to providing their patient's data to the system without their patients' specific consent. Despite this overwhelming display of distrust, according to the article:
[T]he Department of Health said nobody could have genuine grounds for claiming "substantial and unwarranted distress" as a result of having their intimate medical details included on a national computer system, known as the Spine. For that reason, "it will not agree to their request to stop the process of adding their information to the new NHS database".
Yikes!! On top of the increasingly shrill reports of the technical problems the NHS project is suffering, it's hard to imagine that this project is going to get back on track anytime soon.
Back here in the colonies, we at MAeHC are also setting up data exchanges and repositories in our three pilot communities, but we're going with an opt-in approach, meaning that we won't exchange any patient's data without his/her specific, written consent.
This approach certainly takes longer and is definitely more logistically challenging than an opt-out (or the NHS approach of no-choice), but it appropriately puts the burden on us to get the trust of patients and physicians before we start letting their data fly. The very early returns on our experiment are that patients are overwhelmingly opting in -- still early, still small sample, but encouraging nonetheless. In the long run, I think this will build a deeper foundation for the whole enterprise going forward. When problems arise -- and they will arise -- patients will be more forgiving than if we hadn't asked their permission in the first place.....
2 comments:
Interesting blog! I think 24 billion pounds mentioned above should be 24 billion dollars (£12b). Though the figure does keep rising!
Rob Clark: Changed Man, Good Man
by Joel Phillips
I operate the web site, www.religiousfreedomwatch.org. This is a site that will give you facts about extremists, zealots, bigots, terrorists, criminals and other threats to your community. It is used on a regular basis by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. Also, hardly a day goes by that the site does not get an award for being ethical or useful or that some airline executive lets us know that they got good information and they used it to keep shady characters off their flights.
May day job is running American Coast Title which you can read about at www.actfortitle.org. The profits from that company are what pay for the maintenance and research of www.religiousfreedomwatch.org. This activity is fully supported by Frank Berriz and Linda Blood who are the other two owners, the title underwriters at Stewart Titles and of course the employees.
But let me get to the topic. Back in the day Pennsylvania’s Rob Clark was a real problem, making bomb threats against churches and weather stations. He got into Scientology and was completely rehabilitated. From wanting to blow up Scientology and murdering David Miscavige one day to being an ardent Scientologist the next is what I call night and day.
Clark spends most of his life exposing the activities of the various bigots he used be among. Look at my site and time and time again you will find him engaging them in chat debates about the error of their criminal and pederastic ways.
He’s also the man who cracked the Tor code. Tor is software that Wiccans, Indonesians, Russians and other enemies of religious freedom are using in their assault against me, my site and my company. Tor lets you strike invisibly like those monsters in King Kong. But Clark is the man who showed what they were doing and gave some valuable information as to how to stop it.
If Clark has his way there will be a cell full of Wiccans, Indonesians and Russians any day now. Let them keep each other company in there. Of course the reward that is offered by American Coast Title for information leading to the capture of these monsters will help Clark along his way.
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