Regulation wording doesn’t go far enough: Blakeman
The province’s prescription for Albertans’ electronic health records should come with a list of side effects warns the Liberal opposition.
Liberal deputy leader Laurie Blakeman says gaping loopholes in the regulation which takes effect September 1 could allow physicians to override patients’ requests to “mask” their health records from other health providers including opticians and denturists.
“It’s moving to the point where all health professionals listed under the Health Professions Act would be custodians” says Blakeman also a member of the government’s standing committee on health. “It doesn’t distinguish how many of those health professionals get to look at your health record.”
The implications for the proposed health-care system are quite serious says Blakeman. If Albertans are not convinced their health records will be kept fairly confidential they may withhold vital health information which “makes it difficult to accurately allocate health dollars” she warns.
Setting up the system which has been in the works for more than 10 years could cost taxpayers $1.4 billion. The province maintains electronic health records will annually save the province’s health-care system million of dollars in the long run.
The province’s Information and Privacy Commissioner has also raised concerns about the “masking” option noting doctors only have to “consider” patients’ requests to keep their records restricted.
Alberta’s former auditor general criticized the province’s lack of oversight noting the department overseeing the electronic records “does not automatically mask all health information — patients have to submit a request to the department to have their data masked.”
However the government says the system is an improvement over the outgoing paper trail including monthly audits to see who is accessing the records.
“We’ve all heard the stories where a physician’s records end up in the trash and someone finds them — that’s not possible with electronic health records” says John Tuckwell an Alberta Health spokesperson. “There are high levels of security.”
Only health professionals can access the records and are constrained by their professional standards to not access the records inappropriately he adds.
And with electronic records health professionals can access information “only when they are directly involved with the care of that patient” says Tuckwell.
