Patient privacy issues in medical blogs

Some medical professionals may be putting too much specific information on their blogs and posing a threat to patient privacy, according to a study conducted by a team from the University of Pennsylvania published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine website.

In this first methodical study on the issue, the research team reviewed and analyzed the content of 271 medical blogs. About 35 percent of the blogs have the authors expressly identifying themselves while 65 percent remain anonymous. Nearly 57 percent of the blogs, however, contained enough information to reveal the identity of the authors.

But in about 42 percent, there were descriptions of the author’s interactions with particular patients, while almost 17 percent had enough information that would allow patients to identify themselves. In some blogs, they featured photographs where the individual patients could be recognized. One blog actually had detailed descriptions of the patient and links to photographs.

In a particularly alarming variation of these blogs, a number of them contained advertisements and/or promoted healthcare products in their text. Despite ethics standards that require disclosure about conflict of interest or about receiving payment for promoting products, not one of these bloggers made such an acknowledgment.

The research team leader, a specialist in internal medicine, acknowledges that a good number of medical blogs provide valuable information and are professional in tone. However, there are others that can compromise patient privacy and may pose threats to the integrity of doctors and their profession.

The researchers are calling on the medical professional organizations to take the initiative by setting guidelines and standards for medical blogs written by physicians and nurses.

In March 2008, the National Public Radio website published one of the first articles to raise patient privacy issues in medical blogs. The article cites a non-profit group, Patient Privacy Rights, which was founded by a psychiatrist, for its concern about physician blogs that test the limits of patient privacy.

The danger is that individuals will be able to identify themselves from the content in medical blogs, or that others who know them will be able to do so. If this happens, the individual’s employment or health insurance could be affected, as well as other aspects of the person’s life.

Patient privacy has been given strong protections under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Doctors who violate patient privacy can be subjected to fines or jail time. However, the law predates and does not anticipate the advent of medical blogs.

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