Real issue in data-sharing is hospital computer security

Regarding the article “ONC’s Rucker: Lawsuits show hospitals don’t care about privacy,” (ModernHealthcare. com, Feb. 11), hospitals say that they oppose the Trump administration’s proposed interoperability standards because they’re concerned about patient privacy, but HHS’ top health IT official said lawsuits over medical debt show that’s not true.

Somehow one-third of Virginia hospitals garnishing wages to collect debt, as noted in the article, does not sound like a small number if you multiply that across the nation, assuming Virginia reflects what is happening elsewhere.

Third-party apps could be required to be HIPAA-compliant, so I am not sure their use is a very good argument against interoperability.

I also don’t think interoperability or its lack really influences where patients choose to get care. But I’m still shocked that a doctor at hospital A can’t pull up a patient’s records at hospital B in the next town over, since it is all on computers.

The real issue that needs to be addressed is hospital computer security. The fact that hackers can put a hospitals data up for ransom is horrendous. People who do such things should be charged with attempted murder, because that is exactly what they risk (See p. 39 for information on recent data breaches).

The weight of the federal government should be brought to bear on facilitating hospital data security and tracking down those who violate it intentionally for personal gain.

Dr. Martin Hudzinski

Medical director South Mountain (Pa.)

Restoration Center

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