National Individual Identifier:
What Are the Issues?
Master Index Pitched as Patient ID Alternative  by Bob Brewin & Nancy Ferris, Government Health IT, September 12, 2005
The creation of a nationwide electronic records system in the United States would require a way to identify individual patients out of about 300 million people and then link the patient to the record. Technology is not the only challenge, because such a system also raises privacy concerns. But potential models might be found in Canada and New Zealand.
Patient ID is Trouble Spot for Federal Commission by Nancy Ferris, Government Health IT,
August 11, 2005
In its last in-person meeting, a federal advisory commission on interoperability among health information systems was unable to agree on whether to recommend issuance of national health identification numbers for Americans.
Read Connecting for Health's February 2005 Report, "Linking Health Care Information: Proposed Methods for Improving Care and Protecting Privacy" (PDF).
Report
Calls for National Patient ID Standard, Health Data Management,
November 26, 2003
A committee of the Institute of Medicine is urging legislators to
revisit the issue of developing a national patient identification
system. The committee recently released a report that calls for
the deployment of a national health information infrastructure supported
by a wealth of new data standards, including universal patient IDs.
Related articles:
Databases
and Security vs. Privacy by Heather Green, BusinessWeekOnline, October 8, 2001
National ID cards? The government doesn't need them. The real likelihood
-- and potentially as dangerous -- is more use of existing info.
Why
Fear National ID Cards? by Alan M. Dershowitz, New York Times, October 13, 2001
At many bridges and tunnels across the country, drivers avoid long
delays at the toll booths with an unobtrusive device that fits on
a car's dashboard. Instead of fumbling for change, they drive right
through; the device sends a radio signal that records their passage.
They are billed later. It's a tradeoff between privacy and convenience:
the toll-takers know more about you — when you entered and
left Manhattan, for instance — but you save time and money.
An optional national identity card could be used in a similar way,
offering a similar kind of tradeoff: a little less anonymity for
a lot more security.
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