Patients care what their electronic health data is used for, survey shows

Patients do care about what becomes of their health information after it's used for their treatment, and they care more about what it's used for than who's using it.

That's according to a survey report published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association summarizing research aimed to measure patient preferences about sharing their electronic health information for so-called “secondary uses.” Generally speaking, the comfort level dropped for public health organizations' use of the data and fell even further for marketers. University hospitals were viewed more favorably and out-ranked public health departments, which typically fared better than drug makers.