WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, delivered remarks during today’s hearing to examine the future of health care, and how to improve cybersecurity to better protect Americans’ health privacy.
Click here to watch the hearing live.
Cassidy’s speech as prepared for delivery can be found below:
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will please come to order.
As a doctor, I’ve seen how the incredible progression of technology is improving Americans’ health. There are more accurate diagnoses and fewer procedures. When was the last time anyone had to do an exploratory surgery?
The federal government has invested billions in this. One example is a technology called an Electronic Health Record. Additionally, AI is already being implemented in health care settings. With these new technologies, however, we must address the threats of cyber attacks and loss of control of sensitive data.
There were more than 730 cyber breaches last year, affecting over 270 million Americans. This includes the attack on Change Healthcare, the largest health care cybersecurity incident in history. This attack exposed the data of over 190 million people, leading to significant delays in care and electronic prescribing. Further, delays in claims processing resulted in billions of delayed provider payments, bringing many health practices to the verge of bankruptcy.
To ensure patients fully benefit from the advancements in health technology and are not harmed, Congress must work with health care entities to improve resiliency against cyberattacks. I introduced legislation with Senators Maggie Hassan, John Cornyn and Mark Warner last year to address these challenges. I look forward to working with President Trump and my colleagues to advance this legislation through Congress and get it signed into law.
Beyond cyberattacks that threaten Americans’ health, we must also harness the power of big, aggregate data and artificial intelligence, while preventing the misuse of patient data. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has been effective at protecting clinical information for decades. But the law has not kept pace with new technology and innovative tools like wearable devices and apps that are now an essential aspect of health care.
Many of these tools are directly marketed for health purposes, yet consumers are unaware this data is not protected by HIPAA. Rural providers are also unable to best use the data collected via electronic health records to deliver personalized care, given the significant barriers to aggregating and analyzing de-identified clinical data or other health information.
Currently, Americans have few legal protections and control over their health information captured by devices. Sensitive data can be collected, batched, and sold by data brokers to any buyer on the market, including our geopolitical adversaries that can abuse this data for nefarious purposes.
Last Congress, I published a report outlining proposals empowering patients to control how their data is being used. This includes modernizing HIPAA as well as safeguard health data not covered by HIPAA. I am also working on efforts to better leverage AI in health care and assist rural providers with finding value in the population-level data that is available. I look forward to discussing these proposals more in-depth today.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here to share your ideas on how to protect the security and privacy of Americans’ data.
With that, I recognize Senator Sanders.
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