Patient Privacy

Government Access to Medical Records - Official Notice from the Minnesota Health Department

This notice explains the rights you have to access your health record, and when certain information in your health record can be released without your consent. This notice does not change any protections you have under the law.

Citizens Protest MN Health Department's Medical Records Grab

Minnesota citizens filled a meeting room front to back at the Minnesota Department of Health to provide input and comment on the Department’s plan to claim ownership of private medical records data, send the data to a data warehouse in Maine, and use the data rank physicians and hospitals according to the Department’s definition of “quality.” Insurers will then be required by law to steer patients to only those providers who rank as “high quality, low cost.”

Newborn Genetic Screening - The New Eugenics?

Increasingly, the specter of eugenics has emerged over State government newborn genetic screening programs. For example, The Changing Moral Focus of Newborn Screening, the December 2008 report issued by The President’s Council on Bioethics, states: “...At what point have we crossed the line from legitimate family planning to capricious and morally dubious eugenics?"

"Genetic Information in Minnesota" - Dept of Admin Report

Children and Schools

Identification Numbers and Data Systems

Health Care Identifiers and Data Systems

Government Surveillance

Health Care Surveillance and Medical Research

Patient and Medical Confidentiality

MN Health Dept Comments on State's Genetic Info Report

Specifically, a Tennessen Warning requirement [to tell individual how their data would be used by the Dept., whether they have to provide it, etc.] would not be workable for the reporting of communicable diseases or related specimens or for the collection of many other types of public health data or specimens. There may be other privacy protections or some sort of modified Tennessen Warning, but they would have to be tailored to balance MDH's responsibility to protect public health with the individual's privacy. The goal would be to maximize public health protections while minimizing any intrusion on personal privacy.

Attorney's Minority Report to MN Genetic Info Report