Electronic Medical Records and the Challenge to Privacy: How the United States and Canada are Responding

The rapid and continual advances in electronic record keeping create new and challenging privacy concerns in a variety of contexts. This Note examines the particular privacy issues countries face as their health care systems move towards more centralized, electronic medical record keeping. Electronic medical records provide for the increased collection, availability, aggregation, and dissemination of medical data which can facilitate more effective care, but can also leave people vulnerable to having private information misused. This Note focuses on the current privacy law framework in the United States and Canada. It will then explore whether the legal standards in these countries have or are adapting to provide adequate safeguards against the new privacy concerns resulting from the increasing use of electronic medical records