Medical Record Company Is 'Wrong, Wrong, Wrong' To Block Data Sharing, Says Art Caplan

General Election - National Health Service — BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND - MARCH 16: A nurse tends to recovering patients on a general ward at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital on March 16, 2010 in Birmingham, England. As the UK gears up for one of the most hotly contested general elections in recent history it is expected that that the economy, immigration, industry, the NHS and education are likely to form the basis of many of the debates.

Hannah Uebele is a producer for Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and previously worked as associate producer for Boston Public Radio. She graduated from Tufts University with a B.S. in English and Environmental Studies. She's a proud Delawarean but has found herself saying "wicked" more and more often, so the Bostonian metamorphosis is well underway.Contact: hannah_uebele@wgbh.org

January 29, 2020

Updated August 07, 2023

Epic, the largest company that controls medical records in the U.S. company, sent an email to hospitals across the country on Jan. 22, urging them not to adopt a new regulation that aims to improve data sharing among medical computer systems in an attempt to block its data from being easily shared between doctors and patients.

With that in mind, medical ethicist Art Caplan spoke with Boston Public Radio on Wednesday about the line between easier data access and privacy.

"Epic is wrong, wrong, wrong," Caplan said. "The whole point of electronic medical records was to ease access to the patient so that they could get more information more quickly.

"The whole point of going electronic was to share information so that if you went from one doctor to another doctor they would all be able to get your medical record," he said.