The Institute of Medicine has proposed 20 specific health indicators to measure the overall health and well-being of Americans. These 20 indicators will “help Americans track the nation’s progress on improving our health and the effectiveness of public health and care systems,” the report says.
The indicators include things like life expectancy, mortality, unhealthy days, chronic disease and psychological distress.
“Stakeholders and Public Should Use 20 Specific Health Indicators to Measure and Track Health and Well-Being of Americans” is available as a free download from the National Academies Press.
HIPAA privacy rule is inadequate
The National Academies Press also has published “Beyond the HIPAA Privacy Rule: Enhancing Privacy, Improving Health Through Research,” a report that concludes the HIPAA Privacy Rule does not protect privacy as well as it should, and that it impedes important health research.
From the report: “The HIPAA Privacy Rule is difficult to reconcile with other federal regulations governing research involving people and their personally identifiable information. Moreover, organizations that collect and use health data vary greatly in how they interpret and follow the rule, and the rule does not apply uniformly to all health research. The committee’s review of published reports, testimony from patient and privacy advocates and the health research community, and other sources of information led it to conclude that the way the rule is currently interpreted does not adequately protect privacy and impedes important health research.”
The report notes that security breaches are a growing problem for health information databases and that encryption should be required for all laptops, flash drives, and other portable media containing such data.
A report brief is available as a four-page PDF. Journalists can get PDF or printed copies of the full report by contacting the National Academies Office of News and Public Information at 202-334-2138 or news@nas.edu.
