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Contact: Media Relations Officer, (202) 828-0975.
AAMC Supports Bennett Bill Goals to Protect Patient Health Information and Ensure Progress of Biomedical Research
Washington, D.C., April 26, 1999--The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) endorses Sen. Robert Bennett's (R-Utah) Medical Information Protection Act to shield an individual's personally identifiable health information from possible harmful misuse. The AAMC is one of many health care stakeholders that provided input throughout the development of Sen. Bennett's bill, which was introduced today on Capitol Hill.
"The Bennett bill is a solid effort to address the extremely important and complex issue of protecting patient health information," said AAMC President Jordan J. Cohen, M.D. "The proposed legislation is an important step in the right direction as Congress attempts to define the delicate balance between the competing goods of individual privacy and the considerable public benefit that results from controlled access to health information that is crucial in our country's continuing ability to deliver high quality health care and cutting-edge research."
Over the past three years, the AAMC has advocated legislation that includes appropriate confidentiality safeguards and strict penalties while ensuring continued access to patient records and other archival materials required to pursue biomedical, behavioral, epidemiological and health services research. In particular, the AAMC is pleased with the bill's inclusion of a "statutory assurance of confidentiality" for protected health information held by health researchers.
Similar to the tight protections offered by the federal Certificate of Confidentiality, the legislation prohibits any unauthorized attempts to gain access to individually-identifiable research databases for non-research purposes and explicity disallows access for judicial or law enforcement activities. Consequently, researchers may assure patients that all individually-identifiable information used in the course of research is shielded from forced disclosure to anyone, including family members, employers, insurers, health care organizations, or legal and judiciary processes.
In addition, the AAMC endorses the legislation's clear and workable definitions for "protected health information" and "nonidentifiable health information," the creation of appropriate safeguards buttressed by stiff penalties to protect patient confidentiality and the proposed "floor-to-ceiling" preemption of state privacy laws. The AAMC also commends the bill's reliance on institutional review boards in the disclosure of protected health information for purposes of research that presently falls under the purview of federal regulations, and creation of strong new protections for research that does not.
"Sen. Bennett's bill recognizes that in today's world an individual's claim to privacy is not an absolute, but at times, and certainly in the case of health information, must be tempered to ensure the public health and well being for all Americans," said AAMC Senior Vice President for Biomedical and Health Sciences Research David Korn, M.D.
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The Association of American Medical Colleges represents the 125 accredited U.S. medical schools; the 16 accredited Canadian medical schools; some 400 major teaching hospitals, including 74 Veterans Administration medical centers; 87 academic and professional societies representing nearly 88,000 faculty members; and the nation's 67,000 medical students and 102,000 residents.
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