Our last meeting of Health TechNet was held on Friday, April 19 from noon to 2 pm at Nelson Mullins’ offices in Washington, D.C. It was devoted to a roundtable discussion of a number of legislative and regulatory issues that are currently under discussion which will likely affect the technology community in significant ways. Special attention was given to two issues: 1) the President’s latest announcement that the Administration will seek repeal of the entire Affordable Care Act, and 2) active legislative efforts to empower the privacy and ownership rights of patients to de-identified health data. The second issue is the subject of proposed legislation in at least fourteen states and would have the potential effect of interfering with the collection and analysis of patient data by clearinghouses and other analytics companies. This discussion is also raising fascinating questions about the de-identification process, the collection of non-clinical health data by patients (such as diet, exercise, and other habits), and the process of paying patients for data on their own health.
The discussion was led by members of the government relations and healthcare teams of Nelson Mullins, as well as several Health TechNet members who are following legislative and regulatory developments closely