The Trump administration is reportedly demanding emergency rooms across the nation hand over personally identifiable medical records for millions of patients, which critics are calling a controversial expansion of federal health surveillance.
Led by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the initiative seeks access to patient records for thousands of conditions, ranging from routine broken bones to vaccine reactions and adult suicide attempts, according to an investigation by KFF Health News.
Historically, the CPSC — a small agency often tasked with regulating safety for consumer goods like appliances and toys — monitored injuries through a voluntary program known as the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS).
Under NEISS,
hospital staff reviewed records and submitted data specifically tied to product safety. Now, the CPSC is shifting away from human-managed reporting in favor of an automated system designed to sweep up massive volumes of electronic health records, KFF Health News reports.
Under a contract with Konza Health, the new system automatically extracts emergency room records covering more than 10,000 diagnostic conditions. Despite federal laws requiring public notice before collecting data, CPSC officials quietly instructed hospitals to supply detailed, identifiable health records as part of a goal to bring 100 facilities into the network by the end of the year.
CPSC and Konza officials have reportedly told health executives participation is "mandatory" and hinted at regulatory penalties for noncompliance, but several major health systems have pushed back or refused to comply.
What about in Washington DC? Here's what we know.
Will hospitals in Washington DC have to turn over ER records?
It remains unclear whether hospitals in the Washington DC area will be affected by the CPSC's new directive.
KFF Health News, which first reported on the effort, did not identify the hospitals participating in the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s surveillance program. The report said outreach about the new system has included “some of the nation’s largest urban and rural health systems,” but the agency has not released a complete list of participating facilities.
The changes would only apply to the roughly 100 hospitals that are part of the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, or NEISS, a network of emergency departments selected by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to provide a representative sample of injury data from across the country.
That means if a local hospital is part of the NEISS network, it could be asked to transition to the new electronic system. Hospitals that are not part of the network would not be affected by this specific change.
The District is home to several high-volume emergency departments, including MedStar Washington Hospital Center, George Washington University Hospital, Howard University Hospital and Children's National. A single ER in DC can handle upwards of 70,000 patient visits annually, meaning inclusion in Konza’s data collection would expose tens of thousands of local residents' records to the contractor.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will DC hospitals have to give Trump, Konza Health your ER records?
