Panel Examines Privacy Issues
by EA Mukamel
The Harvard Crimson, May 15, 1998: p. 3
Professors and experts of the Internet and the law gathered at [Harvard]
Business School's Pound Hall to discuss ways of protecting confidential
personal information in the age of the Internet.
The panel discussions focused on "Privacy and Cyber/Spaces: Government
Databanks and Identification," and many participants came from medical
backgrounds.
"The problem is an immediate and practical one for practicing doctors,"
said Medical School professor Harold J. Bursztajn, who is co-Director
of the Program in Psychiatry and the Law.
"Privacy comes up a good deal of the time, for example, when we
have to fill out insurance health care forms," he said. "Many
of the patients I see at my private practice come to me because they
value privacy; they would never see me at the medical school."
Bursztajn and others said wider access to medical data can benefit doctors,
who may use the information to improve the way they deliver services
to students.
Bursztajn said the extent to which medical information is being used
both properly and improperly has not been examined, and the loss of medical
privacy on the Internet remains a fear, not a verified reality.
"The problem is there is no good data on databanks [and how they
are being used.] What we do know is that managed care organizations have
been using databanks to profile physicians based on cost," putting
pressure on physicians to forsake quality of care in order to lower costs,
he said.
More than simply an issue of comfort, privacy is often a prerequisite
to good medical care.
"How can anyone gain a deeper understanding of themselves or have
more freedom in their lives unless you have confidentiality and they
know that they will have control over what goes out of my office?" Bursztajn
said of his psychiatric patients. "If you don't have confidentiality,
then you really are asking people to begin to systematically keep from
physicians the information the [doctors] need to know."