MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- This week, a judge will hear arguments on whether the Minnesota Health Department should be allowed to start collecting medical information, including names, birth dates and diagnoses, on nearly every Minnesotan.
The Health Department wants to create a massive database as part of a plan to track the quality of health in the state.
But a public nurse is trying to stop it. Twila Brase, who runs the Citizens' Council on Health Care in St. Paul, says the database is nothing less than an assault on privacy.
The two sides face off Friday, when Administrative Law Judge Allan W. Klein holds a hearing in St. Paul to determine whether the plan should take effect.
The medical database that would include everything from who takes Prozac to who has an abortion, knee surgery or a heart attack can be compiled without infringing on patient confidentiality, health officials say. Information that identifies people would be either deleted or encrypted under the proposed rule, which was authorized by a 1993 law.
But Brase, who has been battling the plan for years, said the encryption is no guarantee of privacy, because somebody has the key to the code.
"Our very utmost concern is that they have no right to get it," Brase said. "And we would argue secondarily that it can be abused."
The Health Department's goal is to track 95 percent of Minnesotans who have health insurance, according to Ann Simpson, the department's data management supervisor.
In 2004, the department would start receiving information on every patient treated at a Minnesota hospital. It would include name, gender, race, illness or condition, treatment and drugs prescribed, including refills.
The same information would be required for outpatient visits -- any time someone sees a doctor or gets a prescription that's paid for by a state-regulated HMO or health plan. For now, that part of the rule is on hold until the department receives more funding.
Eventually, officials say, patients in self-insured plans would be included in the database. Only the uninsured would be left out, they say.
