Intel executive: Let my health records go

Eric Dishman, an Intel Corp. health care systems executive who has survived kidney cancer, says difficulties with getting access to his own medical records nearly killed him.

Dishman is one of the witnesses who appeared Wednesday at a patient health data access hearing organized by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

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Dishman, general manager for health and life sciences at Intel, testified that he lost a chance to participate in a clinical trial eight years ago because he was unable to assemble a complete set of medical records, even after he spent three months trying to do so, and a lawyer spent another three months trying to get the records. He said he has also tried to help other people with cancer get access to opportunities for the best possible care.

“In my advocacy on behalf of cancer records — 1,200 people so far and counting — I still see this happening every week, even with new laws and technologies that should make it possible,” Dishman said, according to a written version of his testimony posted on the committee website.

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Recently, he said, a DNA sequencing company helped him get, and share, genetic information that led to a cure for his cancer.

Until the DNA sequencing company provided the easily shared data, “It was simply too hard to collect all of this information on a timely basis so my doctors could determine the best care plan for me,” Dishman said.

Dishman listed four main obstacles keeping patient records out of patients’ hands:

• Health care providers are still using the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) health data privacy provisions, and other state and federal privacy laws and regulations, to get out of having to send patients their own data.

• Health care providers still lack simple, affordable, standardized patient data sharing systems that can communicate with other providers’ data sharing systems.

• Health care providers don’t think patients can use their own medical information safely.

• Players in the health care system see patient data as a valuable asset.

There’s “a growing attitude among almost everyone in the patient data chain — hospitals, labs, payers, software companies, device developers — that patient data sets are theirs to be monetized,” Dishman said.