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Mike Mitka

JAMA. 1998;280:1897.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

BELIEVING that immediate private initiative is better than waiting years for passage of public law, two accrediting organizations are moving forward with their own recommendations regarding privacy issues and patient records.

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) issued a report in November entitled Protecting Personal Health Information: A Framework for Meeting the Challenges in a Managed Care Environment. The report offers a series of recommendations "to address the demands for personal, sensitive health information now being made by managed care organizations (MCOs), health care providers, employers, quality oversight organizations, regulators and researchers."

"Today's uncertainty about access to personal health information is sustained by the lack of consistent policies and practices for protecting the confidentiality of personal health data," the accreditation agencies said. "Fair information practices that define individual rights and protections for other types of personal information, . . . [Full Text of this Article]