Public’s medical records

If tragedy strikes and family members are seriously hurt in an auto accident, remind them as they are being rushed to the emergency room to authorize in writing the release of information about themselves, specifying who is to receive the information. At least that’s the way the Legislature last year envisioned how families in crisis would find out about the injured.

This poorly considered law, which went into effect Jan. 1, prevents hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and drug and insurance companies from giving out information about patients to anyone without written consent. Hospitals in Maine already are hearing complaints from family members who simply want to know if a loved one is there. The hospitals can’t say, but don’t blame them. Blame the law.

Or help change it. An amendment to last year’s legislation would allow care givers to inform family members and close friends. But it does not go far enough because it does not respect the public right to know, for instance, the condition of a victim of a violent crime or of a public official in poor health. When hospitals make mistakes or when someone is hurt during an arrest, the public should know about it. Accountability keeps the system honest; covering it up by denying journalists information, which both the current law and the proposed amendment do, allows problems to fester.

The impulse to protect a patient’s health information is natural and, for the most part, commendable. The Information Age has made the records valuable commodities to aggressive insurance or marketing companies. But the law and the amendment should recognize the difference between a single request for information about a patient and wholesale blocks of data to be used for commercial purposes.

Bills focused on protecting the public’s ability to obtain information, rather than restrict it, generally do not fare well in the Legislature because the people who most immediately benefit are, ugh, journalists, and disappointing that crowd is an absolute pleasure for politicians. The public’s loss, they apparently feel, is a small price to pay.

So Maine ends up with a law that keeps even family members from getting a hospital to confirm that a brother or sister has been hurt. The move has begun to scale back the law. The public should be concerned that lawmakers will reduce it only enough to eliminate the most troubling aspects of the law, but not enough to serve the public good.