Westin Speaks on Health Research

US Privacy Guru Alan Westin has recently undertaken a study on behalf of the US Institute of Medicine on public attitudes concerning privacy and health research. Modern Healthcare Online has published a two part article on his findings (for part 1 click here - for part 2 click here). From the article:

"The good news for the research community is, despite a plethora of media reports on privacy and security breaches in the healthcare industry, most people still respect the aims of researchers and are willing to support their work.

The bad news is, perhaps because of these highly publicized privacy failures, people need more assurance than in the past that their healthcare information will be protected and, particularly, not end up being misused in ways that could hurt them. This new reality will necessitate some consciousness-raising on the part of researchers, who historically have seen themselves as the guys in white hats who should be above suspicion, according to Westin."