December 2002

Survey Sizes Up State Privacy Laws

Providence, RI – So, how does your state size up with others when it comes to protecting patient privacy? According to a recent study performed by the Privacy Journal, California and Minnesota rank among the nation‚s most vigilant states at protecting their citizens‚ privacy, while the federal government is still lagging behind.

The high marks received by the Golden State are due in large part to a string of patient-friendly legislative efforts that enacted greater privacy protections within the last two years, as well as the protections already included in the state‚s constitution, the Journal reports.

The Journalalso notes that the federal government needs to make a greater effort at protecting individuals from having their medical records accessed. “If the federal government had been ranked like a state it would have placed in the fourth tier,” explained Privacy Journal publisher Robert Ellis Smith, who oversaw the survey.

“Federal laws do not protect medical records nor provide access to them, they do not protect library records at all, and federal law has only partial protection for financial records,” the survey found.

Rounding out the top ten were Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin.

To see the survey, go to: www.privacyjournal.net/advocacy.htm.

Source: Medical Newswire

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