April 4, 2023
Health IT | Tea Leaves
  • The homepages of nearly all U.S. hospital websites shared data with third-party trackers in 2021, according to research published Monday in Health Affairs. Of 3,747 hospitals included in the 2019 American Hospital Association (AHA) annual survey, 98.6 percent of their website home pages had at least one third-party data transfer, and 94.3 percent had at least one third-party cookie. The study did not analyze what specific data was transferred, but the researchers say the sheer volume of trackers suggests it’s likely some of these transfers could run afoul of the federal patient privacy law known as HIPAA. (Articles here, here, here, and here)