Forum Will Help Psychiatrists Safeguard Patients’ Privacy

While the confidentiality of patient information is important to all physicians, this issue has added urgency for psychiatrists in particular. Psychiatric treatment requires that patients be as open and honest with their therapist as possible, which in turn requires the creation of a covenant of trust. Demands for information from managed care organizations, insurance companies, and other third-party entities have threatened that covenant, and now with the unstoppable proliferation of electronic communication, many fear that incursions into privacy are even more inevitable.

To address this issue, APA President Daniel Borenstein, M.D., has organized the forum “Confidentiality and Medical Record Privacy in the 21st Century” for this year’s annual meeting. It will be held on Tuesday, May 8, at noon in room 356, level 3, Convention Center.

The panelists in the forum are, in addition to Borenstein, who will chair the session, Paul W. Mosher, M.D., Marcia K. Goin, M.D., Margo P. Goldman, M.D., Richard K. Harding, M.D., and Professor Latanya Sweeney.

The goal of the forum is to educate participants about psychiatrist-patient confidentiality and medical-record privacy as they are affected by computer databases, electronic transmissions, research, and laws and regulations. Attendees will also learn about steps that can be taken to protect confidential patient communications.

Paul Mosher, M.D., will focus on the meaning, importance, and benefits of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Jaffee v. Redmond. Mosher is a member of APA’s Committee on Confidentiality. Marcia Goin, M.D., an APA vice president, will discuss confidentiality issues in Internet communications.

Margo Goldman, M.D., chair of APA’s Committee on Confidentiality, will discuss protecting patient privacy while doing research using patient records.

APA President-elect Richard Harding, M.D., will describe the impact on physicians of the regulations issued last December by the Department of Health and Human Services as a result of the 1996 Health Insurance Portabilty and Accountability Act (Psychiatric News, February 2). Harding, who was one of the individuals who testified for APA on Capitol Hill on medical privacy, is a member of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics.

Professor Latanya Sweeney, an assistant professor of public policy and computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, will demonstrate the ways in which multiple electronic databases can be cross-referenced to reveal the identity of health care records.

The experts will respond to questions from the audience after the formal presentations. ▪