Fact: Your Health Data Belongs to You By LAW.

Your health information is yours BY LAW. Get your data from your doctors. #MyPHI

Hey everybody, David Williams, CEO of Karen here, and I want to alert you to 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 with 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 is 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. Make sure you request a digital version of your data from your healthcare team. Even if you have multiple doctors, they are required by law to give you an electronic version of your health record.

UPDATED: 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.