You can imagine that in both of those cases that ended with $85,000 fines, the provider incurred far greater costs in the months of dealing with investigators, not to mention the impact on their reputation in the local community of all the resulting news coverage.

Once the rule goes into effect, it will impose significant compliance obligations on healthcare stakeholders, including providers, electronic health record vendors and health information exchanges. Noncompliance could trigger serious consequences. For example, health information exchanges and networks are subject to penalties of up to $1 million for lack of interoperability.

Lets put our differences aside and work together to achieve real change, starting with a pernicious problem that drives so much of our mutual discontent: electronic health records.

AI developers cull electronic health records because they hold huge amounts of detailed data, Cho said. But those developers often arent aware that theyre building atop a deeply broken system. Electronic health records were developed for billing, not patient care, and are filled with mistakes or missing data.A KHN investigation published in March found sometimes life-threatening errors in patients medication lists, lab tests and allergies.

But hospital execs worry that this data may be used in unintended ways, and not always in the patients best interest.

Glucose monitors and insulin pumps are, effectively, prostheses: artificial organs that are basically parts of your body. Abbott’s position is that they own part of your body and you can only use it in ways that don’t upset their shareholders. This is an outrageous position. I mean, forget all the bullshit about whether your blood is copyrighted and if so, by whom – they’re saying that your organs are copyrighted works whose usage is subject to the whims of a white-shoe law firm that is prepared to delete your code and send you a bowel-looseningly terrifying legal threat any time you dare to assert your bodily autonomy.

The fine marks the second settlement HHS’ Office for Civil Rights has announced as part of its Right of Access Initiative, an effort the agency launched earlier this year to ensure patients have access to their medical records as mandated under HIPAA.

Health IT developers, health information networks, and health information exchanges that the Inspector General, following an investigation, determines to have committed information blocking shall be subject to a civil monetary penalty determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services for all such violations identified through such investigation, which may not exceed $1,000,000 per violation.

Personal health information is no longer private.

Warner urged that, at aminimum, CMS’ final rule should include standards that guarantee patients have ready access to their personal health data and an ability to regularly monitor the information for accuracy. Patients need to beinformed of all commercial uses of their data, including any third parties their data have been shared with, Warner urged.