August 18, 2010: Tiger team clarifies patient consent rules for HIEs. Link

August 17, 2010: Patients' concern about access to medical records is paramount, says survey.

May 7, 2010: The Health Record Banking Alliance submitted comments to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in response to the proposed "e-Prescribing" regulation. The HRBA response urges DEA to coordinate its provider authentication requirements with other Federal agencies and private entities so that providers can use a single set of credentials for a wide variety of online information systems and transaction types.

March 15, 2010: The Health Record Banking Alliance submitted comments to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in response to the proposed "Meaningful Use" regulation. The HRBA response emphasizes the central importance of consumers (or whomever they designate as their proxy) being able to send their electronic medical information in standardized form to a recipient of their choice, such as a health record bank, as soon as it is generated.

February 5, 2010: Jim Hansen, CEO of CareEntrust, gave a presentation entitled, "Developing and Executing a Business Plan for Achieving Sustainability for Health Information Exchange" at the National Health Information Exchange Summit in Washington, DC. He discussed how the health record banking approach can be a key element in achieving financial sustainability.

January 14, 2010: Patients demand: 'Give us our damned data'. Link

October 29, 2009: Dr. William Yasnoff, President of HRBA, gave a presentation at the Southern California Health Care Summit in Ontario, CA.

October 26, 2009: The PHR — Moving Consumers From Pawns to Kings. Link

October 14, 2009: The Health Record Banking Alliance has submitted comments to the HHS Office of the National Coordinator in response to their "Consumer Preferences Requirements Document." The HRBA response emphasizes the central importance of consumers' control of their own health information, and the ability of health record bank architecture to easily and conveniently implement consumer choices.

October 1, 2009: Perspective: Health Record Banking in an ARRA World. Patty Enrado, editor of the Health IT news portal nhinwatch.com, reports on the ongoing development and implementation of health record banks (HRBs) that is continuing after the passage of the HITECH/ARRA legislation, and how HRBs can be the foundation of health information exchange in communities in support of meaningful use of electronic health records, allowing physicians to qualify for stimulus funds. Dr. William Yasnoff, President of HRBA, is quoted extensively.

September 15, 2009: HIMSS/AMDIS podcast on Health Record Banking. Jack Varga, MD, Treasurer of HRBA, gave a podcast interview on health record banking.

August 28, 2009: HRBA sends letters to State Banking Regulators. Today, in a letter to the banking commissioner in all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico, the Health Record Banking Alliance offered to provide advice and assistance in establishing regulations for health record banks that ensure consumer protection. Each letter included a copy of the HRBA Principles & Fact Sheet, which details the guidelines that HRBA members have agreed to utilize in the operation of health record banks.

August 7, 2009: The cover story of Federal Computer Week, "Is the Nation's Health Network Healthy?", has several quotes from Dr. William Yasnoff, President of HRBA, explaining the advantages of health record banks and expressing concern about the feasibility of the "network of networks" approach of the NHIN (Nationwide Health Information Network) as currently being pursued by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.

August 3, 2009: In an interview on Federal News Radio, Neville Pattinson, VP of Government Affairs and Business Development, Gemalto North America (an organizational member of HRBA), discussed the need for and importance of smart card authentication, including in the context of accessing and protecting the privacy of health information in patient-controlled health record banks.

June 17, 2009: "Health care records should be user-friendly, patients say", a Federal Computer Week article, describes how patient advocates are encouraging the Obama administration to tailor the regulations relating to the upcoming $18 billion in subsidies for health IT to give patients more power to access and control their own electronic health records by including patient-centric principles in the definition of "meaningful use." It specifically references the Health Record Banking Alliance.

May 19, 2009: (Spokane, WA) "Push for More Patient Control of Health Records", a news story on NPR Station KPLU, describes the development of health record banks in Washington State and Oregon.

May 6, 2009: (Washington, DC) HRBA member Patient Command asked HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to initiate a rulemaking under the HITECH Act (part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) to define interoperability criteria for the Qualified Electronic Health Record. In their letter, also sent to David Blumenthal, MD, HHS National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Patient Command proposed interoperability standards for the Qualified EHRs using existing technology, with the aim of initially defining a Qualified EHR as having the capability to input and output medical record narrative under an XML schema maintained by NIST and based on the Continuity of Care Document (CCD).

March 25, 2009: (Salt Lake City, UT) The Louisville Health Information Exchange (LouHIE) has selected 3M Health Information Systems to provide the electronic health record banking system for the greater Louisville area. 3M and its partner, InterComponentWare, Inc. (ICW), will design, build, and pilot an integrated health information network that will offer free health record banking services to all 1.2 million citizens in the greater Louisville community.

March 18, 2009: (Wenatchee, WA) Local pilot project allows patients to see, update their own medical records online. The local newspaper reports on the community health record bank that just began operations.

March 16, 2009: The State of Washington announced that three Health Record Bank pilots are now operational. The pilots, in Bellingham, Cashmere, and Spokane, were funded in 2008 through the Health Care Authority in collaboration with the Health Information Infrastructure Advisory Board (HIIAB). They represent the first consumer-controlled, community-based electronic health record repositories in the nation. Health Record Banks provide consumers with the opportunity to access and fully control copies of their health records held securely on their behalf. See also Health Record Banks Gaining Traction in Regional Projects, State Starts Health Records Bank Pilots, Washington state launches pilot projects for health record bank, and Washington State Launches Pilots To Test Health Record Banks.

February 17, 2009: Perspective: Taking a closer look at health record banks in Washington State and Oregon. Patty Enrado, editor of the Health IT news portal nhinwatch.com, reports on the ongoing health record bank implementation efforts in Washington State and Oregon.

February 2, 2009: Perspective: Health Record Banking Gaining Traction. Patty Enrado, editor of the Health IT news portal nhinwatch.com, reports on the rapidly growing interest in health record banking, including the ongoing development in health record banks in communities across the country.

February 1, 2009: The Health Record Banking Alliance released its White Paper on Health Record Banking.

January 19, 2009: In a podcast interview for IT Compliance Advisor, William A. Yasnoff, MD, PhD, talks about privacy issues related to health IT and how health record banks can address them.

January 15, 2009: The Health Record Banking Alliance today joined a broad coalition of organizations including the Progressive Policy Institute, American College of Cardiology, Cerner Corporation, Patient Command, National Alliance for Hispanic Health, and the Self-Insurance Institute of America to endorse a pragmatic set of recommendations for requirements and priorities attached to health IT expenditures in the Economic Stimulus bill now being considered by Congress. We recommend that all EHRs be required, at the request of the patient, to produce human-readable text output of that patient's record in XML format either 1) as recommended by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), or 2) using an XML format with a schema that the EHR vendor has filed with NIST. Further, this copy should be available within 24 hours of the request at no charge to the patient.

For funding directed to health information exchanges, we recommend that priority be given to those projects that pursue and achieve the goals of: 1) making information available 24/7 in XML format from every health care source serving the population of the HIE; 2) including full audit trails in the information available (to facilitate privacy protection); 3) fully and accurately authenticating the identify of all users; 4) serving safety net providers, the underserved, and the disabled; and 5) achieving a sustainable business model.

We believe that adoption of these recommendations will help ensure that health IT funds are productively used to implement systems that will enable third party organizations to act on behalf of patients to assemble a comprehensive copy of their records, while ensuring that patients have control over who has access to which portions of that copy. We urge Congress to incorporate them in the Economic Stimulus bill.

December 19, 2008: Business Week online op-ed on Health Record Banking. In an op-ed in Business Week online entitled "Electronic Records Are Key to Health Care Reform", William A. Yasnoff, MD, PhD, describes how health record banks can solve the problem of making complete patient records available at any point of care and providing EMRs to all physicians while fully protecting individual privacy. He then outlines the policies that the new Obama Administration should adopt to encourage the development of health record banks with only modest new Federal expenditures.

December 18, 2008: HIMSS publishes new book on PHRs featuring the health record bank model. The book, "Personal Health Records: The Essential Missing Element in 21st Century Healthcare," is co-authored by Holly Miller, MD, MBA, William A. Yasnoff, MD, PhD (Founder and President of HRBA), and Howard Burde, Esq. It provides a comprehensive overview and discussion of the many issues pertaining to the adoption and use of personal health records, with chapters on PHR architecture (including the health record bank model), PHR law, and PHR business sustainability models.

December 6, 2008: President-Elect Obama announces his commitment to universal electronic medical records: "We will make sure that every doctor's office and hospital in this country is using cutting edge technology and electronic medical records so that we can cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help save billions of dollars each year." President-Elect's Weekly Address

December 5, 2008: Drs. Katherine Ball and William Yasnoff gave a presentation entitled "Averting the Collision: Privacy Doctrine & Health Information Exchange" at the eHealth Initiative Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. Meeting Agenda.

December 1, 2008: "Wal-Mart Launches E-Health Program", Business Week 8 Dec 2008. Describes Wal-Mart's push to get its employees to sign up for Dossia, the health record bank it sponsors in cooperation with Intel, BP, and other large corporations.

November 20, 2008: Government Health IT Editorial, "Reinstate e-health privacy", by Dr. William Yasnoff explains why the HIPAA Privacy Rule does not really assure privacy.

August 24, 2008: Washington State announces three health record bank pilots.

July 10, 2008: In a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine (extract -- subscription required for complete text), the weakening of privacy that would result from extending HIPAA to personal health records (PHRs) or health record banks is explained. More information.

June 9, 2008: "Medical Records You Can Bank On" in For the Record magazine.

June, 2008: "Banking on Patient Control" in Healthcare Informatics magazine.

May 27, 2008: Journal of AHIMA article, "Who Pays for Health Record Banks?"

May, 2008: Journal of AHIMA cover story, "Taking Medical Records to the Bank"

December 11, 2007: Dr. Yasnoff is featured in an article about health information technology in the Wall St. Journal.

October 26, 2007: Today a report strongly advocating health record banks entitled "Improving Health Care: Why a Dose of IT May Be Just What the Doctor Ordered" (overview) was released by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. It was presented at a National Press Club event that included remarks from Health IT Now! Co-chair, former Congresswoman Nancy Johnson. Additional information.

June 1, 2007: Dr. William Yasnoff presented " A Feasible Path to Sustainable Community Health Information Infrastructure" at the Northeast Florida Health Information Initiative Summit in Jacksonville, FL.

April 20, 2007: Dr. William Yasnoff gave the keynote entitled "A Feasible Path to Sustainable Community Health Information Infrastructure" at the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) meeting in Jacksonville, FL.

March 22, 2007: Need for health information infrastructure for biosurveillance highlighted. In an article entitled "Biosurveillance Evolution" in Health Data Management, the importance of a national health information infrastructure to provide the data needed by public health agencies for early detection of outbreaks and other adverse population health events is described. The article includes several quotes from an interview with Dr. William Yasnoff.

March 7, 2007: Dr. William Yasnoff discusses health record banks in an interview with Dr. Ron Pion on BigMediaUSA.com Rx Radio: Your Prescription for Health. Available for listening or download.

March 3, 2007: Dr. William Yasnoff answers questions about health record banks in an interview with HIMSS Insider.

February 18, 2007: In a New York Times article entitled "Warnings Over Privacy of U.S. Health Network," Dr. William Yasnoff comments on the need for increased privacy protection as a prerequisite to successful health information infrastructure. The health record banking legislation from the last session of Congress is also mentioned.

February 14, 2007: William Yasnoff suggests health record bank for Wisconsin in an interview with the Wisconsin Technology Network.

December 18, 2006: Washington State Unveils Its Health Information Infrastructure Roadmap. NHINwatch describes the recently released report from Washington State.

December 1, 2006: Washington State Report Recommends Health Record Banks. After a 16-month process of study and review, the Washington State Health Information Infrastructure Advisory Board (HIIAB) (created by the Legislature) has released its report recommending the development of multiple Health Record Banks with some financial assistance from the State. The report has an extensive review of the background, current status, and available options for implementing health information infrastructure. It concludes by recommending an incremental and achievable path towards an effective health information infrastructure in Washington State using Health Record Banks containing consumer-controlled copies of health records from multiple sources. Participation in the system by consumers would be voluntary. Dr. William Yasnoff served as the project consultant to the HIIAB.

August 10, 2006: World Healthcare Congress Leadership Summit on RHIOs, EMRs, and Patient Portals, Boston, MA. Dr. william Yasnoff presents opening keynote: "A New Patient-centric and Sustainable Approach to Health Information Infrastructure": Presentation (840 KB slide show)

June 8, 2006: LEGISLATIVE NEWS! Independent Health Record Banks legislation introduced. Senator Brownback (R-Kansas) has introduced a bill [view bill] to create and promote the development of Independent Health Record Banks -- repositories of electronic medical records in communities as envisioned in the eHealthTrust model. Cerner Corporation is also supporting the legislation. A companion bill has been introduced in the House by Congressmen Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) and Dennis Moore (D-Kansas).

The legislation establishes rigorous privacy and security requirements with regulatory oversight for health record banks, and would help assure public trust. There are also tax benefits for consumers who participate and employers who sponsor them. Contact your Senator and Representative and urge them to cosponsor and support this excellent proposal!

April 25, 2006: Wisconsin Technology Network's Jason Stitt interviews Dr. William Yasnoff, founder of the eHealthTrust, asking him to explain how this approach can foster the both the widespread availability of lifetime health records for consumers and the adoption of electronic health records by providers. Part1 ; Part 2

February 19, 2006: Louisville Health Records Network Aims to be National Model. Healthcare IT News

February 6, 2006: Dr. William Yasnoff Describes the eHealthTrust and Louisville Project. Listen to Neil Versel's podcast interview.

February 5, 2006: Louisville Courier Journal Reports on eHealthTrust Project. (Report)

February 1, 2006: Louisville Announces First eHealthTrust. Today, the Louisville Health Information Exchange (LOUHIE) issued two Requests for Proposals (RFPs) which incorporate the eHealthTrust model.

January 9, 2006: Dr. William Yasnoff describes the Seven Keys to RHIO Success (For more information)

February 1, 2006: Louisville Announces First eHealthTrust. Today, the Louisville Health Information Exchange (LOUHIE) issued two Requests for Proposals (RFPs) which incorporate the eHealthTrust™ model. The first RFP seeks a contractor to develop and operate a community-wide eHealthTrust repository for storage and retrieval of electronic medical records, including the provision of management, marketing, business and technical operations, and security. The second RFP covers Licenses for Web Services Integration with eHealthTrust Electronic Medical Records with Patient Permission. For more information, see www.louhie.org and ww.williamyasnoff.com/?p=17

November 2005: eHealthTrust developer William Yasnoff, MD, PhD, speaks at Washington Governor's Health Care Summit (PDF) (Puget Sound Business Journal 11/4/05)

October 2005: Public Attitudes Support eHealthTrust Model (PDF) Recent polling results show that Americans favor a system for providing access to their complete electronic health records that 1) carefully identifies all users (91%); 2) allows consumers to control (79%) and monitor (81%) others' access; and 3) provides patients with the ability to see their own records (53%). These are all key eHealthTrust features.

October 2005: Markle Foundation and 14 other organizations endorse principles supporting eHealthTrust. (PDF) The Markle Foundation's Personal Health Technology Council joined 14 other organizations in endorsing seven Consumer and Patient-Focused Principles that are already fully supported by the eHealthTrust, including: 1) Individuals should have access to their electronic health records; 2) Individuals should control who else has access to those records; and 3) Individuals should be able to review who has seen their their electronic health records. Other organizations endorsing these principles include AARP, AFL-CIO, Consumers Union, National Consumers League, and the Health Privacy Project. For more information and a complete list of the principles and endorsing organizations, be sure to read this report.

October 2005: NHINWatch Perspective: A Patient-centric RHIO model promises to overcome barriers. Healthcare IT News (Free NHINWatch.com Registration Required)

October 2005: Personal Health Information: Data Comes Alive! (PDF) Ester Dyson discusses eHealthTrust in September issue of Release 1.0.

October 2005: To Set Realistic Expectations for Interoperable Health Information, HIMSS introduces the RHIO Federation. The HIMSS RHIO Federation brings together RHIO organizations in a collaborative effort to foster information exchange and development of beneficial resources.

October 2005: How Can We Align the Incentives to Sustain Shared Electronic Health Records in Communities? , Medscape Webcast Video Editorial (Free Medscape.com Registration Required)

July, 2005: Build a National Network One Region at a Time, Managed Care

July 20 2005: Majority of Consumers Believe Electronic Medical Records Can Improve Medical Care, Accenture Survey Finds, Accenture

June 09 2005: Former HHS Official Seeks Patent for e-Health Trust Business Model, Health-IT World