Contractual gag orders in EMRs - a petition

MedInformaticsMD and the good folks at Health Care Renewal  have launched an interesting and important electronic petition drive about Transparency and Openness in Electronic Patient Records and Other Healthcare Information Technology Systems. The key issue is that some manufacturers of electronic medical record systems and related technology put clauses in their service contracts that customers may not publically report or discuss bugs or problems in the system. Even truly disastrous problems that result in patient deaths or institutional mayhem are subject to these gag orders, limiting the ability of the medical and health IT communities to mitigate, repair or avoid them.


I share the belief that these kinds of restrictions are bad for patients, bad for providers, bad for the country, and in the long run, bad for the manufacturers themselves. So, I have signed the petition online, and suggest that you consider doing so, too.