Stop the Missouri Legislature from Sending YOUR Private Data to DHSS & MU School of Medicine
HB 2164 – Rep. Haden
Hearing Scheduled: Feb. 20 (Tues) 2pm, House Hearing Rm.1
HB 2164 would require ALL Missouri Emergency Medical Services data to be captured and sent to the MO Dept. of Health & Senior Services (DHSS) and the MU School of Medicine. The data would then be de-identified, analyzed, and disclosed to third parties such as public health authorities, health researchers, local emergency medical response agencies, and more.
The bill says the data will be used in epidemiological studies, but what is the purpose? Are they setting up for pandemic X? Is this another way to fake an outbreak? How will those studies help patient outcomes?
Or is this about something else? ImageTrend, the tech company contracted to carry out this plan, has a new vaccination tracking platform EliteVax which was released in 2020. The platform systematizes the tracking of vaccination records including setting up automated delivery of vaccine certificates and notifications about boosters. The company boasts that its “advanced reporting and analytics are ready to monitor vaccination rates at the county, state, and national level”.
If this bill goes through, the vaccine status of every Missourian who receives care from an EMS service could be entered into this system and shared with an open-ended list of stakeholders.
Is it the patients or the public/private partnerships that stand to gain more from a bill like this?
In this bill, the sponsors are selling the idea that the emergency patient can get better, faster care because their records are immediately accessed and then communicated from EMS to the hospital just by scanning a driver’s license (which is creepy). Patient data from the previous 90 days can then be accessed. But how do we know this will make patient care better? We already have sophisticated data on individuals thanks to bills like the one Missouri passed that implemented PDMP.
Realistically, when do EMS personnel have time to enter data and read it in an emergency situation when they are responding to the person’s immediate needs because their heart stopped, they have stopped breathing, they are bleeding, or choking, etc?
We have all seen situations in hospitals where individuals were lined up at a computer station throughout their shifts entering data. Patient care becomes secondary when healthcare workers have to spend time entering data. This obsession with data competes with and negatively effects care.
And what about data breaches? What recourse do patients have if their data is illegally shared? In 2021, New Jersey emergency medical data was erroneously accessed by the state police. The high level access allowed unauthorized individuals to see the medical records for any patients transported by the volunteer first-aid squad without any oversight or limitation. To make things worse, nothing was done to compensate the patients for this compromised information. This kind of blanket access by private companies and government to sensitive medical data without any controls should be a wake-up call to everyone who assumes their relationships with healthcare providers are private.
HB 2164 sets up a data collection trap that gives patients no way to control where our data goes during a medical emergency, a time when we are least able to advocate for ourselves.
Please help stop the unnecessary release of your personal data by filling out a witness form OPPOSING HB 2164 at the link below. Comments are welcome, but not required. Be sure to check your inbox to confirm your email address (important)!
https://witness.house.mo.gov/Default.aspx?bill=HB2164¬iceid=8450
Please do this TODAY! The deadline for submission is Tue 2/20 at midnight!
Informed Health Choice Legislative Team
ihcm.info
