Sharing health data while protecting privacy

Across the United States, numerous states have enacted laws that provide various forms of incentives for health care industries to use HIEs and that address growing privacy concerns associated with the sharing of patient data.

Idris Adjerid, an assistant professor of management at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, and his fellow researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Michigan investigated the impact of state laws that incentivize HIE efforts. They also examined state laws that include different types of privacy requirements for sharing health care data on the emergence of HIEs, focusing in particular on the impact of laws that include requirements for patient consent. Although the researchers note that privacy regulation alone can result in fewer planned and operational HIEs, they also found that, when coupled with incentives, privacy regulation with requirements for patient consent can actually positively impact the development of HIE efforts. Among all states with laws creating HIE incentives, only states that combined incentives with consent requirements saw a net increase in operational HIEs. HIEs in those states also reported decreased levels of privacy concern relative to HIEs in states with other legislative approaches.

"Conventional wisdom suggests that increased privacy regulation impedes technological innovation," Adjerid said. "We provide evidence that this is not always the case. Our study highlights that a regulatory approach which balances the promotion of HIE efforts and substantive privacy protections can be most effective in driving useful technology efforts that also present privacy concerns."

The study appears in the journal Management Science,