This NYT article tells the story of a very bright young man that took control over has health data and probably saved his own life. Few of us have the knowledge to do what he did, but most would agree that having the choice to access our health data is the right approach.

I suspect that as long as the risk of uninformed patients misusing the information they access and the risk of unauthorized access of protected health information outweigh the demand for access to the information, progress will be limited. How do we balance freedom of information and data liquidity with effective access controls and reasonable assignment of liability?

Previously, I blogged about my thoughts on patient privacy and its use as an excuse for an non-interoperable patient record.