Paul Feldman, the deputy director of the Health Privacy Project, has resigned from a federal privacy work group, citing lack of progress in developing a privacy policy.
In a two-page letter today to Robert Kolodner, interim director of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at HHS, from Feldman and Janlori Goldman, director of the not-for-profit Health Privacy Project, Feldman resigned as co-chairman of the Confidentiality, Privacy and Security (CPS) work group of the American Health Information Community. The AHIC is a 17-member panel formed by HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt in 2005 to advise the government on healthcare information technology issues.
The pair wrote that, “We have determined we are unable to continue given that the work group has not made substantial progress towards the development of comprehensive privacy and security policies that must be at the core of a nationwide health information network (NHIN). ... To date, CPS has met six times since August 2006, and has produced just a single—albeit useful—set of recommendations on patient-identity-proofing covering three of the four 'original' use cases assigned to AHIC. ...
“Nevertheless, these recommendations and expected CPS next steps are a far cry from a comprehensive and timely approach that would give privacy policy equal and necessary footing with interoperability and systems development efforts,” they continued. “Last month's Government Accountability Office report concluded that HHS has 'not yet defined an overall approach for integrating its various privacy-related initiatives and addressing key privacy principles.' In fact, in a June 22, 2006, letter to Secretary Leavitt, the National Committee on Health and Vital Statistics urged HHS to take steps towards the development of policy for the privacy and security of personal health information on the NHIN. Sadly, most of the recommendations have not been addressed by HHS.”
