Patricia Sánchez Abril

Ethical, legal and social issues for personal health records and applications

Robert Wood Johnson Foundations Project HealthDesign included funding of an ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) team, to serve in an advisory capacity to the nine design projects. In that capacity, the authors had the opportunity to analyze the personal health record (PHR) and personal health application (PHA) implementations for recurring themes. PHRs and PHAs invert the long-standing paradigm of health care institutions as the authoritative data-holders and data-processors in the system. With PHRs and PHAs, the individual is the center of his or her own health data universe, a position that brings new benefits but also entails new responsibilities for patients and other parties in the health information infrastructure. Implications for law, policy and practice follow from this shift. This article summarizes the issues raised by the first phase of Project HealthDesign projects, categorizing them into four topics: privacy and confidentiality, data security, decision support, and HIPAA and related legal-regulatory requirements. Discussion and resolution of these issues will be critical to successful PHR/PHA implementations in the years to come.

The patent holder's dilemma: buy, sell, or troll?

The current patent process in many ways works against IT innovation by making the road to realization too dispiriting for todays independent inventors.

The Evolution of Business Celebrity in American Law and Society

Max Mosley was the president of the Federation Internationale de l‘Automobile, the international governing body for motor sports, including Formula One auto racing. 2 Mr. Mosley is well known to followers of the sport, but is hardly a household name. In 2007, a British tabloid published a salacious article entitled ―F1 Boss Has Sick Nazi Orgy with 5 Hookers.‖ 3 The article included various images depicting the executive engaged in allegedly Nazi-themed sadomasochistic and sexual activities with several consenting women. 4 Mr. Mosley sued the tabloid for breach of privacy and libel under English law, claiming that the tabloid‘s allegations regarding the dalliance‘s Nazi overtones were untrue and injurious. During the trial, the tabloid argued that the public has a right to know of the unconventional sexual conduct and adultery of prominent businessmen like Mr. Mosley. 5 While the English court agreed that disclosure of an executive‘s anti-Semitism would be in the public interest, 6 it refused to broadly define ―public interest‖ so as to encompass an executive‘s legal sexual behavior. 7 Throughout the international controversy, many called for Mosley‘s resignation, declaring he ―should go out of responsibility for the institution he represents.‖ 8