The News Review:

- New Bill Proposes ‘Health Record Trusts’ That Pay Doctors To…
- Early HIV drugs are saving babies: study
- China India join WH clinical registry platform

New Bill Proposes ‘Health Record Trusts’ That Pay Doctors To…
InformationWeek – Jul 26, 2007
Plus because Dossia is employer-sponsored Kendall isn’t sure that model would gain the level of confidence among consumers that a non-biased independent trust would get. As proposed by the new bill the trusts would ensure confidentially privacy and security of patient data providing consumers control over who has access to their data or what parts of the information. So for instance a patient could limit which doctors have access to his or her mental health information and whether a pharmaceutical company conducting clinical research could access the patient’s drug information. Patients could also add their own notes into their records although patients would not be allowed to alter the data from health care providers such as doctors and labs. While the trusts offer a different angle on promoting the use of health IT by doctors not everyone is sold on the idea that the model removes financial barriers to physicians. “Unless doctors are going to hire someone to enter data into the trust’s systems they’re still going to need an electronic medical record of their own” to send patient information to the trust says Keith MacDonald a research director at First Consulting Group. But on the brighter side “this seems to address concerns about patient privacy and patients having control over their own records” he says.

Early HIV drugs are saving babies: study
The Age – Jul 26, 2007
nly four per cent of the infants who were treated early diedwithin a year compared with 16 per cent of the babies who haddelayed treatment. Infants who were not given early treatment died ofgastroenteritis pneumonia SIDS and other diseases that attackedtheir weakened immune systems. Professor David Cooper co-convenor of the conference anddirector of Australia’s National Centre in HIV Epidemiology andClinical Research said the findings were important given more thanhalf a million babies were born with HIV last year. “This study is a real breakthrough because it tells us thattreating these children before 12 weeks of age will reduce theirmortality down to a quarter” Prof Cooper said. While the results of the study were promising for infectedchildren in sub-Saharan Africa they have little impact inAustralia where mother-to-child transmission rates are verylow. “It is of course not relevant in Australia where HIV-infectedwomen get highly-active antiretroviral therapy and themother-to-child transmission has almost disappeared” he said. “But in sub-Saharan Africa where women do not always gethighly-active antiretroviral therapy there is quite a burden ofinfants who are infected.

China India join WH clinical registry platform
Indian Muslims – Jul 26, 2007
This is a major step for policymakers and scientists who can now track local research activities improve the quality of that research and meet global standards for transparency. The general public also benefits by free access to a more complete picture of clinical research on diseases of interest in their own countries. Both China and India have a rapidly expanding clinical trial research sector. The Chinese Clinical Trial Register was established in 2005 and has now met the criteria to submit its trial registry data to WH’s web search portal. The Clinical Trials Registry in India announced last week is the most recent of the world’s five primary registries and was built to meet WH’s reporting requirements. “The addition of these two clinical trial registers is a milestone in a growing international movement for more transparency and accountability in research involving people” said WH Director-General Dr Margaret Chan.