Do You Own Your Health Information? Epic Says No!
Hey everybody, David Williams, CEO of Karen here, and I want to alert you to an article that's been published, an op-ed in Stat News. It discusses Epic, the leading electronic medical record (EMR) company. You might ask, why does Epic matter to me? Well, EMRs, are the systems in which all of your health information is stored. When you go to the doctor, when you're in the hospital, EMRs are the systems they use to store your health information. The op-ed sounds the alarm about how Epic doesn't want to have information that's stored in their systems to be shared other apps or EMRs.
Judy Faulkner, CEO of Epic has been lobbying hospital CEOs to oppose a federal rule under consideration that would force EMR companies to make their stored data easily shareable across other software systems.
From the op-ed:
In its arguments against the rule, Epic claims that its concern is about protecting patient privacy. It is supporting a meme that patients cannot be trusted to choose their own health apps….Here, Epic has taken the position of the fox arguing that chicken wire is a threat to chickens’ freedom to walk around.
Epic’s CEO was calling on health systems to resist the federal law under consideration that says information should be transferable to protect their virtual monopoly on YOUR health data. The data stored in the EMR is YOURS by law.
Epic is trying to create a monopoly in the electronic medical record market and monopolize your health data. That is unacceptable. They want to own your data and they don't want you to control your data. They want to be the owner and the arbiter of who gets information that belongs to you so they get paid for it.
At Karen, we give you the power over your health information, the ability to control the ownership, the storage, the access, the sharing, even being able to generate new data that is much more descriptive and predictive of your health experience. That’s what you want and need from a company that holds your most precious information, that about your health.
If you have any questions, please drop us a line at myphi at yeskaren dot com. We are happy to share more about PHI ownership and how Karen gives you control.
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UPDATED 2/6/20: Christina Farr of CNBC posted an article with the signatories of 60 hospital systems that are supporting Epic’s opposition to the data-sharing rule proposed by HHS. Their position is a disgrace and will hurt us as patients and our families trying to share our data when needed. Let’s take control of our health data! Use the hashtag #MyPHI to let your voice be heard on social media.