ONC Seeks Consumer Views on HIE

I hope this is not just another survey that words the questions such that the consumers have no choice but to answer them a certain way. For example: “Do you want your health data secured?” Duh… No, that seems like a bad idea…

How about probing questions that really get to the heart of how hard the consumer is willing to work to control each and every bit of data? I suspect that the vast majority would be happy with a template policy that segments the data into a few slots each with reasonable Role-Based-Access-Controls that are specific to the Intended-Use.  One template policy is a reasonable OPT-IN, one template policy is a reasonable OPT-OUT-WITH-BREAK-GLASS, and one template is an outright OPT-OUT that allows for no use of data outside the original episode.  I am not saying that these should be our policies, what I am saying is that I suspect that 80% of consumers easily fall into a very small number of policies. This is also not saying that we should not serve the 20%, we should. But we can allow the 80% to go forward and get the benefits of Health IT, while we work on the 20% problem. So, lets see a survey that tests this theory..

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology wants a better idea of how health care consumers feel about the national drive toward health information exchange. ONC is asking the Office of Management and Budget for approval to conduct computer-assisted telephone interviews with a representative sample of nearly 2,600 individuals across the nation. More