Health Data in the Information Age: Use, Disclosure, and Privacy

Ed Molla S Donaldson, Kathleen N Lohr National Academy Press, pounds sterling32.95, pp 257 ISBN 0-309-04995-4 Usable information is a powerful tool, and, as increasingly complex and comprehensive health information about patients and the health care workers and institutions who care for them is held on computer, this tool offers both benefits and inevitable dangers. Serious consideration of the issues arising from the collection of such information is in its early stages in Britain; but experts would say that our systems for collecting data are equally underdeveloped. The English and Welsh health departments have recently issued what they consider to …