Public use of patient data for public health

The development of electronic medical records creates the potential to tap patient data for the creation of aggregate databases that have great potential to promote public health. Today, however, this data is unavailable because hospitals, data managers and commercial interests limit public use to exploit the data for their own profit and in part because of concerns over privacy. Private markets for such data fracture the data pool and reduce its value for public health purposes. This presentation analyzes the legal and economic obstacles to liberating data for public health purposes. It proposes an agenda for reform to promote public health uses of data while protecting privacy and allowing, where appropriate, commercial development of databases.