Law Commons^™

Health Information Privacy, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Thoughtful scholarship in the area of informational privacy sometimes assumes that a significant level of privacy can coexist with the development of a modern health information infrastructure. Some commentators suggest that we can have it both ways: that adequate legal protection of informational privacy will eliminate the need to significantly limit the collection of health data. This article demonstrates that there is no such easy resolution of the conflict between the need for information and the need for privacy. Because significant levels of privacy cannot realistically be achieved within the health information infrastructure currently envisaged by policymakers, we confront a …